Nematicons in twisted and chiral nematics

Abstract

Spatial solitons observed in nematic liquid crystals, called as nematicons, possess unique properties that can be applied in all-optical switching and routing elements. Theoretical predictions and experimental results show the facility to steer direction of nematicons propagation both in 1+1 dimensional planar waveguides as well as in 2+1 dimensional structures. In this work we present the properties of nematicons in different configurations including twisted and chiral nematic liquid crystalline films. Due to the optical reorientational nonlinearity the spatial solitary waves were created for a light power of few tenths of milliwats at the distances of few millimeters.