Semidiscrete composite solitons in arrays of quadratically nonlinear waveguides

We demonstrate that an array of discrete waveguides on a slab substrate, both featuring chi(2) nonlinearity, supports stable solitons composed of discrete and continuous components. Two classes of fundamental composite soliton are identified: ones consisting of a discrete fundamental-frequency (FF) component in the waveguide array, coupled to a continuous second-harmonic (SH) component in the slab waveguide, and solitons with an inverted FF/SH structure. Twisted bound states of the fundamental solitons are found, too. In contrast with the usual systems, the intersite-centered fundamental solitons and bound states with the twisted continuous components are stable over almost the entire domain of their existence. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.