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

Journal Article · Tue Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.033832· OSTI ID:21541389

Beeckman, Jeroen; Madani, Abbas; Vanbrabant, Pieter J. M.; Henneaux, Pierre; Gorza, Simon-Pierre; Haelterman, Marc ^[1]

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1. Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, B-9000 Ghent (Belgium)

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.

• OSTI ID: 21541389
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 83, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.033832; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CHIRALITY
DIFFRACTION
LIQUID CRYSTALS
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PHOTON BEAMS
REFRACTIVE INDEX
SIGNALS
SOLITONS
SYMMETRY BREAKING
BEAMS
COHERENT SCATTERING
CRYSTALS
FLUIDS
LIQUIDS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
QUASI PARTICLES
SCATTERING