• Citer

Switching and intrinsic position bistability of soliton beams in chiral nematic liquid crystals

par Beeckman, J.;Madani, A.;Vanbrabant, P.J.M.;Henneaux, Pierre ;Gorza, Simon-Pierre ;Haelterman, Marc
Référence Physical Review A, 83, 3, page (033832)
Publication Publié, 2011-03

Article révisé par les pairs

• Détails
• Contenu

Résumé :

We study theoretically and experimentally the propagation of light beams in chiral nematic liquid crystals. Despite the rather complex refractive index distribution of these crystals, their reorientational nonlinearity can compensate for diffraction, leading to robust solitonlike beams propagating along helical trajectories. We demonstrate that, due to a symmetry-breaking instability of the liquid crystal structure, these beams undergo abrupt switching and bistability, features that are of potential interest for applications to all-optical signal processing.