Neshev, DragomirMartin, HectorChen, ZhigangKivshar, Yuri2016-05-202016-05-200146-9592http://hdl.handle.net/1885/101487We study experimentally the interaction of a soliton with a nonlinear lattice. We observe the formation of a novel type of composite soliton created by strong coupling of mutually incoherent periodic and localized beam components. By imposing an initial transverse momentum on the soliton stripe, we observe the effect of lattice compression and deformation.The work was partially supported by the Australian Research Council, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and Research Corporation.Keywords: Anisotropy; Deformation; Diffusion; Electric fields; Light propagation; Modulation; Nonlinear optics; Photorefractive materials; Electro-optic coefficients; Lattice compression; Nonlinear effects; Nonlinear photonic lattices; Solitons2003-07-3010.1364/OL.29.0004862016-06-14