Nematicon

In optics, a nematicon is a spatial soliton in nematic liquid crystals (NLC). The name was invented in 2003 by G. Assanto. and used thereafter Nematicons are generated by a special type of optical nonlinearity present in NLC: the light induced reorientation of the molecular director (i.e. the average molecular orientation). This nonlinearity arises from the fact that the molecular director (i.e., the optic axis of the corresponding uniaxial) tends to align along the electric field of light. Nematicons are easy to generate (with mW optical power or less ) because the NLC dielectric medium exhibits the following properties: In optics, a nematicon is a spatial soliton in nematic liquid crystals (NLC). The name was invented in 2003 by G. Assanto. and used thereafter Nematicons are generated by a special type of optical nonlinearity present in NLC: the light induced reorientation of the molecular director (i.e. the average molecular orientation). This nonlinearity arises from the fact that the molecular director (i.e., the optic axis of the corresponding uniaxial) tends to align along the electric field of light. Nematicons are easy to generate (with mW optical power or less ) because the NLC dielectric medium exhibits the following properties: Since the reorientational optical nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals is accompanied by an electro-optic response to low-frequency electric fields, i.e. applied voltages, nematicons and the associated waveguides can be steered in angle and routed in space by the application of an external bias, leading to reconfigurable interconnects. In waveguide arrays where discrete solitons are knows to form, discrete nematicons have also been demonstrated