Interaction of spatial solitons with a gapless stripe embedded into a Bragg-grating area

We introduce a model in which the grating is absent in a finite-width stripe in the waveguide, thus creating a gapless channel in the gapped medium. Two semi-infinite grating separated by the plain stripe may have a relative phase shift. This system modifies the Bragg bandgap, creating intra-gap defect modes (DFs) which are pinned to the gapless channel. A DF solution in the linear system is found analytically. Further, numerical analysis of the full nonlinear system demonstrates that the shape and stability of Bragg solitons are also strongly affected by the presence of the gapless channel, and by the possible phase shift between the two semi-infinite gratings. In particular, asymmetric and flat-top solitons appear.