Abstract

Spatial optical soliton propagation in any material is limited by the losses of the optical beam, which results in beam broadening. In nematic liquid crystals it is possible to tune the magnitude of the nonlinearity by means of a bias voltage. In this work we present the idea of increasing the nonlinearity along the propagation distance by changing the bias voltage. Next to a theoretical analysis, we present experimental proof of the validity of our method. The use of this technique offers a major advantage for optical interconnects because the beam broadening can be reduced over much longer propagation distances.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

Nonlocal spatial soliton interactions in nematic liquid crystals

Marco Peccianti, Katarzyna A. Brzdąkiewicz, and Gaetano Assanto
Opt. Lett. 27(16) 1460-1462 (2002)

Breathing solitons in nematic liquid crystals

A. I. Strinic, M. Petrovic, D. V. Timotijevic, N. B. Aleksic, and M. R. Belic
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Discrete propagation and spatial solitons in nematic liquid crystals

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Spatial solitons in liquid-crystal light valves

A. Piccardi, U. Bortolozzo, S. Residori, and G. Assanto
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Signal readdressing by steering of spatial solitons in bulk nematic liquid crystals

Marco Peccianti and Gaetano Assanto
Opt. Lett. 26(21) 1690-1692 (2001)