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Updated: Jun 30, 2026
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Preparation of Liquid Crystal Networks for Macroscopic Oscillatory Motion Induced by Light
Published on: September 20, 2017
Nematic liquid crystals: a suitable medium for self-confinement of coherent and incoherent light
Marco Peccianti1, Gaetano Assanto
1National Institute for the Physics of Matter & Department of Electronic Engineering, Terza University of Rome, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Rome, Italy.
Abstract:
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit a saturable, non-instantaneous nonlinear response through light-induced reorientation. In such a material, we demonstrate that (2+1)-dimensional spatial solitary waves can be generated at milliwatt power levels not only with a coherent optical beam, but also with incoherent excitations. Self-trapping also allows the efficient guidance of a weak co-polarized probe.
