Spatial solitons in voltage-biased nematic liquid crystals

Author

Assanto, Gaetano ; Peccianti, Marco ; De Rossi, Alfredo `. ; Umeton, Cesare ; Khoo, Iam-Choon

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Energia Elettrica, Rome Univ., Italy

Volume

1

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

195

Abstract

Spatial optical solitons have been demonstrated at few mW powers in planar cells with a nematic liquid crystal and in the presence of an applied AC bias. The soliton is a channel waveguide able to confine a weak probe of equal polarization. Furthermore, since we deal with a nonresonant effect, the observed phenomena do not depend on wavelength and will be extended to the 1.3-1.5 μm spectral region and to partially coherent beams. Finally, the use of an external voltage not only lowers the required power levels for self-confinement, but also enables an extra degree of control for all-optically reconfigurable interconnects

Keywords

liquid crystal devices; nematic liquid crystals; optical interconnections; optical solitons; optical waveguides; reconfigurable architectures; 1.3 to 1.5 mum; all-optically reconfigurable interconnects; applied AC bias; channel waveguide; external voltage; nonresonant effect; partially coherent beams; planar cells; power levels; self-confinement; spatial optical solitons; voltage-biased nematic liquid crystals; weak probe; Laser beams; Liquid crystals; Optical polarization; Optical propagation; Optical refraction; Optical saturation; Optical solitons; Optical variables control; Physics; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Society 2000 Annual Meeting. LEOS 2000. 13th Annual Meeting. IEEE

Conference_Location

Rio Grande

ISSN

1092-8081

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5947-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LEOS.2000.890742

Filename

890742