  Bright and dark spatial solitons are observed in an optically pumped
semiconductor resonator. The pumping allows to considerably reduce the light
intensity necessary for the existence of the solitons and alleviates thermal
load problems. Experiments are found to agree with calculations based on a
simple large aperture semiconductor resonator model. The role of signs of the
absorptive and reactive nonlinearities for soliton existence are discussed in
relation with the nonlinear resonance effect, the tilted wave mechanism of
pattern formation, and the sign of the population inversion.
