Patterned electrode steering of nematicons

The interaction of spatial optical solitons in nematic liquid crystals or nematicons with electrically induced waveguides is investigated experimentally and numerically. Our observations show that broad multimode waveguides are able to guide nematicons and permit an angular steering of the signal. This opens the way to combining the all-optical properties of spatial solitons with the reconfigurability of the electrically induced waveguides. Our numerical model is in good agreement with the observed phenomena.

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