Nematicons: reorientational solitons from optics to photonics

ABSTRACT The most recent advances on phenomena and effects which involve spatial optical solitons stemming from the reorientational optical response of nematic liquid crystals, the so called Nematicons, are reviewed hereby. After the initial assessment and basic understanding, in the past few years, significant progress on nematicon optics has included cavity-less beam bistability and hysteresis, spontaneous symmetry breaking, power-adjusted refraction, curved waveguides. In photonics, a novel approach for the bottom-up realization of permanent optical waveguides has been introduced, as well as a soliton-aided random laser with enhanced directionality and pointing control.