1,720,997 research outputs found
Breather solitons in highly nonlocal media
No full textWe investigate the breathing of optical spatial solitons in highly nonlocal media. We use a generalization of the Ehrenfest theorem (1990 Am. J. Phys. 58 742) leading to a fourth-order ordinary differential equation, the latter ruling the beam width evolution in propagation. In actual highly nonlocal materials, the original accessible soliton model by Snyder and Mitchell (1997 Science 276 1538) cannot accurately describe the dynamics of self-confined beams: the transverse size oscillations have a period which not only depends on power, but also on the initial width. Modeling the nonlinear response by a Poisson equation driven by the beam intensity we verify the theoretical results against numerical simulations
Nonlinear negative refraction in reorientational soft matter
No full textWe analyze the propagation of self-trapped optical beams close to the Fréedericksz threshold in nematic liquid crystals. Accounting for power-dependent changes in walk-off due to the all-optical response, we demonstrate that light beams can switch from positive to negative refraction according to the excitation
Electromagnetic Confinement via Spin-Orbit Interaction in Anisotropic Dielectrics
Full text linkWe investigate electromagnetic propagation in uniaxial dielectrics with a transversely varying orientation of the optic axis, the latter staying orthogonal everywhere in the propagation direction. In such a geometry, the field experiences no refractive index gradients, yet it acquires a transversely modulated Pancharatnam−Berry phase, that is, a geometric phase originating from a spin−orbit interaction. We show that the periodic evolution of the geometric phase versus propagation gives rise to a longitudinally invariant effective potential. In certain configurations, this geometric phase can provide transverse confinement and waveguiding. The theoretical findings are tested and validated against numerical simulations of the complete Maxwell’s equations. Our results introduce and illustrate the role of geometric phases on electromagnetic propagation over distances well exceeding the diffraction length, paving the way to a whole new family of guided waves and waveguides that do not rely on refractive index tailoring
Anomalous diffraction in hyperbolic materials
No full textWe demonstrate that light is subject to anomalous (i.e., negative) diffraction when propagating in the presence of hyperbolic dispersion. We show that light propagation in hyperbolic media resembles the dynamics of a quantum particle of negative mass moving in a two-dimensional potential. The negative effective mass implies time reversal if the medium is homogeneous. Such property paves the way to diffraction compensation, i.e., spatial analog of dispersion compensating fibers in the temporal domain. At variance with materials exhibiting standard elliptic dispersion, in inhomogeneous hyperbolic materials light waves are pulled towards regions with a lower refractive index. In the presence of a Kerr-like optical response, bright (dark) solitons are supported by a negative (positive) nonlinearity
Erratum: Spatial optical solitons in highly nonlocal media [Phys. Rev. A 91 , 013841 (2015)]
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