Multihump thermo-reorientational solitary waves in nematic liquid crystals: Modulation theory solutions
Publication Name
Physical Review A
Abstract
The propagation of light-induced thermo-reorientational solitary waves in nematic liquid crystals is studied using numerical solutions of the full governing equations and variational approximations. These thermo-reorientational solitary waves form as the nonlocal refractive index response to extraordinarily polarized light beams is both self-focusing via the induced rotation of the constituent molecules and self-defocusing owing to the temperature increase through optical absorption. These competing nonlinearities can lead to the formation of one- and two-dimensional multihumped solitary and ring-shaped waves at high enough optical powers with a volcano profile on the plane transverse to propagation. The variational solutions for these self-localized structured beams are in remarkably good agreement with full numerical solutions of the governing equations.
Open Access Status
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Volume
104
Issue
1
Article Number
013526