title: Countering spatial soliton breakdown in nematic liquid crystals.
abstract: Spatial optical soliton propagation in any material is limited by the losses of the optical beam, which results in beam broadening. In nematic liquid crystals it is possible to tune the magnitude of the nonlinearity by means of a bias voltage. In this work we present the idea of increasing the nonlinearity along the propagation distance by changing the bias voltage. Next to a theoretical analysis, we present experimental proof of the validity of our method. The use of this technique offers a major advantage for optical interconnects because the beam broadening can be reduced over much longer propagation distances.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Information Systems (ELIS), Liquid Crystals and Photonics Group,Ghent University, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Gent, Belgium. jeroen.beeckman@elis.ugent.be
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Beeckman
authors.forename: Hamidreza
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Azarinia
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haelterman