Accelerated optical solitons in reorientational media with transverse invariance and longitudinally modulated birefringence

Urszula A. Laudyn, Michał Kwaśny, Mirosław A. Karpierz, Noel F. Smyth, and Gaetano Assanto

Phys. Rev. A 98, 023810 – Published 7 August 2018

Abstract

We demonstrate that reorientational spatial solitons can curve when propagating in a medium with engineered walk-off along the direction of propagation. In this regard, we employ nematic liquid crystals with molecular anchoring defined by electron-beam lithography and optic axis distribution modulated in the longitudinal direction only, keeping the transverse orientation constant. The experimental results are in remarkably good agreement with a simple modulation theory based on momentum conservation.

Received 29 May 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.98.023810

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Optical solitons Photorefractive & Kerr effects

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Urszula A. Laudyn¹, Michał Kwaśny¹, Mirosław A. Karpierz¹, Noel F. Smyth^2,*, and Gaetano Assanto³

¹Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw 00-662, Poland
²School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, Scotland, United Kingdom
³Nonlinear Optics and Optoelectronics Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Rome “Roma Tre,” 00146 Rome, Italy and Laboratory of Photonics, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere 33101, Finland

^*Corresponding author: N.Smyth@ed.ac.uk

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Vol. 98, Iss. 2 — August 2018

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