Stable vortex-soliton arrays in disclination-fractal systems

Vortex light fields carry orbital angular momentum and have attracted significant attention because of their wide applications in light field manipulations, optical communications, and quantum information processing. In nonlinear media, the balance between diffraction and self-action enables the formation of vortex solitons. However, achieving the stability of vortex solitons remains challenging due to radial and azimuthal modulation instabilities. Here, we report stable vortex solitons and vortex-soliton arrays in disclination-fractal configurations with different rotational symmetries, constructed by applying disclination operations to fractal lattice structures. The stable vortex-soliton arrays—composed of several vortex solitons—can exist along domain walls, resulting from the disclination operation applied to the topologically trivial phase. Their stability is verified through both linear stability analysis and direct simulations of perturbed propagation. For comparison, vortex-soliton arrays in conventional disclination configurations are found to be completely unstable, demonstrating the significance of the fractal configuration in stabilizing these nonlinear states. These findings reveal, to our knowledge, a new nonlinear excitation mechanism arising from the interplay between fractal geometry and disclination defects, thereby providing theoretical underpinnings for both the improved understanding of multi-field excitation phenomena in complex geometric systems and opening new avenues for the design of photonic devices based on disclination-fractal structures.