Spatial solitons in voltage-biased nematic liquid crystals

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