Optical breathers in uniaxial crystals

Anisotropic crystals are shown to have three different mechanisms of the formation of breathers depending on the direction of the extraordinary wave propagation and on the symmetry of the medium. All uniaxial crystals with quadratic susceptibilities can be divided into three different groups, according to the crystal classes (CC). Each group is characterized by a universal structure of the breather zones (SBZ). The SBZ of the media with cubic susceptibilities does not depend neither on the crystal systems nor on the CC and coincides with the SBZ of the crystals with quadratic susceptibilities and the CC 3, 3m, 4, 4mm, 6, 6mm. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.