Journal of Lasers, Optics & Photonics

Soliton Aided Propagation and Routing of Vortex Beams in Nonlocal Media

Abstract

Gaetano Assanto and Noel F Smyth

Two-dimensional optical vortex beams can propagate stably and undergo bending in nonlocal media with the aid of a spatial soliton, the latter preventing their destabilization and breakup. By colaunching a suitable pair of collinear soliton and vortex beams in nematic liquid crystals, we conduct a series of numerical experiments to demonstrate that the vortex beam can be made to propagate in the nematicon waveguide and follow its trajectory, even in the cases of refraction and total internal reflection at a dielectric interface. Modulation theory supports these findings and provides an excellent theoretical framework.