title: Power-controlled transition from standard to negative refraction in reorientational soft matter.
abstract: Refraction at a dielectric interface can take an anomalous character in anisotropic crystals, when light is negatively refracted with incident and refracted beams emerging on the same side of the interface normal. In soft matter subject to reorientation, such as nematic liquid crystals, the nonlinear interaction with light allows tuning of the optical properties. We demonstrate that in such material a beam of light can experience either positive or negative refraction depending on input power, as it can alter the spatial distribution of the optic axis and, in turn, the direction of the energy flow when traveling across an interface. Moreover, the nonlinear optical response yields beam self-focusing and spatial localization into a self-confined solitary wave through the formation of a graded-index waveguide, linking the refractive transition to power-driven readdressing of copolarized guided-wave signals, with a number of output ports not limited by diffraction.
authors.affiliation: NooEL-Nonlinear Optics and OptoElectronics Lab, University 'Roma Tre', 00146 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Armando
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Piccardi
authors.affiliation: NooEL-Nonlinear Optics and OptoElectronics Lab, University 'Roma Tre', 00146 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alberucci
authors.affiliation: NooEL-Nonlinear Optics and OptoElectronics Lab, University 'Roma Tre', 00146 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Nina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kravets
authors.affiliation: Zepler Institute, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
authors.forename: Oleksandr
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Buchnev
authors.affiliation: NooEL-Nonlinear Optics and OptoElectronics Lab, University 'Roma Tre', 00146 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Assanto