Abstract
We report on the impact of topological defects on the formation of discrete spatial solitons in waveguide arrays. The influence of defects, i.e. waveguides with detuned effective refractive index, is well understood within such systems. They have been shown to support linear bound states and thus influence the formation of spatial solitons in the surrounding sites. We show numerically and demonstrate experimentally how the presence of topological defects caused by junctions within the otherwise periodical system similarly has a strong influence on the surrounding sites.