Observation of out-coupling of a nematicon

Beeckman, Jeroen; Neyts, Kristiaan; Hutsebaut, Xavier; Haelterman, Marc

doi:10.2478/s11772-006-0034-9

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…145,[147][148][149][150][151][152][153] One of the easiest configurations to understand, the soliton generation is the configuration for which the liquid-crystal is aligned uniformly, making an angle of 45 deg with respect to both the propagation direction of the light and the electric field. The optical electric field reorients the director not only exactly at the position of the light beam, but in a much larger area, caused by the elastic forces between the LC molecules, as shown in Fig.…”

Section: Solitonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquid-crystal photonic applications

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Liquid crystals are nowadays widely used in all types of display applications. However their unique electro-optic properties also make them a suitable material for nondisplay applications. We will focus on the use of liquid crystals in different photonic components: optical filters and switches, beam-steering devices, spatial light modulators, integrated devices based on optical waveguiding, lasers, and optical nonlinear components. Both the basic operating principles as well as the recent state-of-the art are discussed. C 2011 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).[ DOI: 10.1117/1.3565046] Subject terms: liquid crystals; photonic applications; review; liquid-crystal lasers; spatial light modulators; tunable lenses; nematicons; optical nonlinearity.Paper 100913SSR received Nov. 5, 2010; revised manuscript received Jan. 11, 2011; accepted for publication Jan. 13, 2011; published online Jun. 14, 2011. IntroductionLiquid crystals (LCs) are organic materials that are liquid but that show a certain degree of ordering (positional and/or orientational). With this definition, many materials can be classified as liquid crystals, but the majority of liquid crystals that are used in photonic applications are of the thermotropic type. Thermotropic means that the liquid-crystal phase exists within a certain temperature interval (in contrast to lyotropic materials for which the material is liquid-crystal within a certain concentration range). Various types of thermotropic liquid-crystal materials exist, and many different mesophases have been discovered in the last decades: nematic, smectic A, smectic C, columnar, blue phases, and many many more. The diversity of liquid-crystal materials is huge, but this diversity is even overshadowed by the number of applications in which liquid crystals are used nowadays. The majority of applications are related to informationdisplay applications. Liquid crystals have conquered the major market share in different display application areas: television screens, laptop screens, screens in mobile phones, etc. Only in projection displays does a tough competitor exist, namely microelectromechanical systems or licenced by Texas Instruments: Digital light processing. Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are the obvious next generation technology that could overtake the LC domination, but today OLED displays have not penetrated the market and only the future will tell if they will. In this review article, we will focus on nondisplay applications, but because we cannot go too broad, we restrict ourselves to photonic applications in which the light is actively manipulated by the LC. In this review article, a certain external influence (surface anchoring, electric fields, optical fields) is used to (re)orient the LC in a certain way. In turn, the LC then changes the light that is propagating through it. Of course, as in every review article, it is impossible to list all the fascinating new scientific results or breakthroughs. Therefore, the authors apologize for not i...

show abstract

Section: Solitonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquid-crystal photonic applications

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One of the most interesting features in the communication field is the lossless energy transfer in the form of nematicons which can be used for fiber-to-fiber interaction processes. [62,63]…”

Section: Periodic Soliton Solutions Through Homogeneous Balance Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modulational instability of optically induced nematicon propagation

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We report the modulational instability (MI) analysis for the modulation equations governing the propagation of coherent polarized light through a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) slab, in the limit of low light intensity and local material response. The linear stability analysis of the nonlinear plane wave solutions is performed by considering both the wave vectors (k,l) of the basic states and wave vectors (K,L) of the perturbations as free parameters. We compute the MI gain, and the MI gain peak is reduced and the stable bandwidth is widened with the increase of the strength of the applied electric field. Further, we invoke the extended homogeneous balance method and Exp-function method aided with symbolic computation and obtain a series of periodic solitonic humps of nematicon profiles admitting the propagation of laser light in the NLC medium.

show abstract

“…This undulation has been experimentally verified. 25,30 This undulative behavior can be used for large angle beam steering of optical signals. The undulation period can be changed by changing the applied voltage.…”

Section: First Configurationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Nonlinear wave guiding in nematic liquid crystals

et al. 2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Waveguiding in liquid crystals can be achieved by controlling the molecular orientation by means of external fields or by shaping the geometry of the substrates that contain the liquid crystal material. The creation of these waveguides in liquid crystals can also be achieved by using the optical nonlinear properties of the material. For a sufficient optical power (in the order of a few mW), the beam can induce its own optical waveguide. This is a selfinduced waveguide and the resulting beam is referred to as a soliton beam. In the last few years, the properties of these soliton beams have been studied thoroughly, revealing some interesting phenomena. In this article, simulations are reported on two common configurations in which solitons have been generated experimentally. The soliton beam, for certain configurations, displays an undulative behavior inside the cell, which may be used for large angle steering of the optical beam.

show abstract

Observation of out-coupling of a nematicon

Cited by 6 publications

References 16 publications

Liquid-crystal photonic applications

Liquid-crystal photonic applications

Modulational instability of optically induced nematicon propagation

Nonlinear wave guiding in nematic liquid crystals

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About