Stable vortex soliton in nonlocal media with orientational nonlinearity.

We report on the first experimental observation of stable vortex solitons in nematic liquid crystals with nonlocal nonlinear reorientational response. We show how these nonlinear vortex beams can be formed and confined in extraordinary optical waves by employing the cell with no lateral boundary conditions and the application of an external magnetic field that effectively controls the molecular direction and propagation of the self-trapped beams. We also find that these vortex solitons can be generated in certain ranges of the input beam power.

[1]  G. Assanto,et al.  Observation of stable-vector vortex solitons. , 2015, Optics letters.

[2]  Wieslaw Krolikowski,et al.  Giant optical manipulation. , 2010, Physical review letters.

[3]  M. Belić,et al.  Dipole Azimuthons and Vortex Charge Flipping in Nematic Liquid Crystals , 2022 .

[4]  N. F. Smyth,et al.  Light-Induced Waveguides in Nematic Liquid Crystals , 2016, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[5]  Etienne Brasselet,et al.  Tunable optical vortex arrays from a single nematic topological defect. , 2012, Physical review letters.

[6]  Y. Kivshar,et al.  Observation of vector solitons with hidden vorticity. , 2012, Optics letters.

[7]  Ole Bang,et al.  Collapse arrest and soliton stabilization in nonlocal nonlinear media. , 2002, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[8]  Dmitry V. Skryabin,et al.  Optical Solitons Carrying Orbital Angular Momentum , 1997 .

[9]  Tal Carmon,et al.  Solitons in nonlinear media with an infinite range of nonlocality: first observation of coherent elliptic solitons and of vortex-ring solitons. , 2005 .

[10]  Iam-Choon Khoo,et al.  Electrically assisted self-confinement and waveguiding in planar nematic liquid crystal cells , 2000 .

[11]  Deflection of nematicon-vortex vector solitons in liquid crystals , 2014 .

[12]  Ole Bang,et al.  Ring vortex solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media , 2005 .

[13]  F. Dalfovo,et al.  Theory of Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped gases , 1998, cond-mat/9806038.

[14]  Yuri Kivshar,et al.  Stable vortex solitons in nonlocal self-focusing nonlinear media. , 2004, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[15]  D. Grier.  A revolution in optical manipulation , 2003, Nature.

[16]  J. Whinnery,et al.  THERMAL SELF‐FOCUSING OF LASER BEAMS IN LEAD GLASSES , 1968 .

[17]  Law,et al.  Optical vortex solitons observed in Kerr nonlinear media. , 1992, Physical review letters.

[18]  J P Torres,et al.  Stable spinning optical solitons in three dimensions. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[19]  Jason Christou,et al.  Spiraling bright spatial solitons formed by the breakup of an optical vortex in a saturable self-focusing medium , 1995 .

[20]  N. F. Smyth,et al.  Vector vortex solitons in nematic liquid crystals. , 2008, Optics letters.

[21]  Blasberg,et al.  Stabilization of transverse solitary waves by a nonlocal response of the nonlinear medium. , 1993, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[22]  Y. Kivshar,et al.  Observation of topological transformations of optical vortices in two-dimensional photonic lattices. , 2006, Optics express.

[23]  M. Berry,et al.  Dislocations in wave trains , 1974, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[24]  M G Clerc,et al.  Harnessing optical vortex lattices in nematic liquid crystals. , 2013, Physical review letters.

[25]  Lluis Torner,et al.  Stable ring-profile vortex solitons in bessel optical lattices. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[26]  Gaetano Assanto,et al.  Magnetic routing of light-induced waveguides , 2017, Nature Communications.

[27]  N. F. Smyth,et al.  Vortex stabilization by means of spatial solitons in nonlocal media , 2016 .

[28]  D. Leykam,et al.  Laser speckle field as a multiple particle trap , 2010 .

[29]  N. F. Smyth,et al.  Stabilization of vortex-soliton beams in nematic liquid crystals , 2009 .