We discuss experimental observations of extreme optical events in photorefractive ferroelectric crystals demonstrating a new optical system to study abnormal wave phenomena [1]. Spatial rogue waves emerge as the highly-nonlinear beam propagation is affected by out-of equilibrium properties and large stochastic fluctuations in media response. Ongoing investigations to inspect the role of optical turbulence and spatial incoherence in their generation are also reported.

References

[1] D.Pierangeli, F.Di Mei, C.Conti, A.J.Agranat and E.DelRe, Spatial Rogue Waves in Photorefractive Ferroelectrics, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 093901 (2015).