Stabilizing and controlling domain walls and dark-ring cavity solitons.

We demonstrate two alternative techniques for controlling and stabilizing domain walls (DW) in phase-sensitive, nonlinear optical resonators. The first of them uses input pumps with spatially modulated phase and can be applied also to dark-ring cavity solitons. An optical memory based on the latter is demonstrated. Here the physical mechanism of control relies on the advection caused to any feature by the phase gradients. The second technique uses a plane wave input pump with holes of null intensity across its transverse plane, which are able to capture DWs. Here the physical mechanism of control is of topological nature. When distributed as a regular array, these holes delimit spatial optical bits which constitute an optical memory. These techniques are illustrated in a degenerate optical parametric oscillator model, but can be applied to any phase-sensitive nonlinear optical cavity.