Observation of Optical Spatial Solitons in a Highly Nonlocal Medium

C. Conti, M. Peccianti, and G. Assanto

Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 113902 (2004)

Abstract:

We report on the observation and quantitative assessment of self-trapped pulsating beams in a highly nonlocal nonlinear regime. The experiments were conducted in nematic liquid crystals and allow a meaningful comparison with the prediction of a scalar theory in the perturbative limit, while addressing the need for beyond-paraxial analytical treatments.