Nematicons: self-localised beams in nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

We review the impressive progress on light self-localisation into spatial optical solitons in nematic liquid crystals. We summarise the basic physics and models, outlining the main properties of nematicons and providing an overview of the most significant experimental achievements in undoped, planar, twisted and chiral nematic liquid crystals.

Keywords:

• spatial solitons
• reorientational non-linearity
• liquid crystals

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to various collaborators worldwide: R. Dąbrowski, M. Kaczmarek, I.C. Khoo, A.A. Minzoni, E. Nowinowski, S. Residori, M. Sierakowski, F. Simoni, N.F. Smyth, N. Tabiryan, C. Umeton and T.R. Wolinski. We are indebted to our students and associates over the years for the extensive contributions to the work reviewed hereby: A. Alberucci, C. Conti, A. Fratalocchi, K. Jaworowicz, M. Kwasny, U.A. Laudyn, A. Pasquazi, M. Peccianti, A. Piccardi and K.A. Rutkowska.

Work partially sponsored at UniRoma3 by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Force Material Command, USAF, under grant number FA8655-08-1-3045. The U.S Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purpose notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon.