Nematicon waveguides: self-confined beams and their electric control
O. Buchnev, A. Piccardi, M. Kaczmarek and G. Assanto
Appl. Phys. B 108, 177-182 (2012)
Abstract:
We investigate the excitation and propagation of self-confined beams and the electric steering of soliton-based optical waveguides in nematic liquid crystalline planar cells. Controlled addressing of a signal is achieved in space by exploiting the electro-optic response of the uniaxial material, employing either uniform or patterned electrodes to alter either the Poynting vector or the wavevector, respectively.