Advance Program:
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Conference Information:
The investigation of nonlinear optical effects in liquid crystalline materials has recently gained more momentum, mostly due to material progress as well as their non local response, not to mention the added value provided by infiltration of liquid crystals in nanostructured materials.
Their giant reorientational and thermo-optic response, large electro-optic polarizability, significant birefringence, extended spectral transparency and high damage threshold have been exploited to demonstrate several novel phenomena, including beam filamentation and clustering, spatial solitons and steering, light amplification and lasing, all-optical switching, transverse pattern formation, polarization instability and gain. Liquid crystals are recognized not only as highly competitive materials for practical applications in image/signal processing, sensor protection and holographic storage, but also as an ideal workbench for investigating nonlinear optical effects at relatively low power levels, offering the benefits of a mature technology in conjunction with a wide variety of material properties, including chirality, double refraction, photorefraction.
An example of Wave-Particle duality of light?
Two mixed polarization beams (ordinary and extraordinary waves) are launched in a nematic liquid crystal: the ordinary beams diffract and interfere, whereas the extraordinary beams excite two spatial solitons which retain their "particle" nature even after collision. Note how the extraordinary-wave solitons propagate at a walk-off angle of 7° with respect to the wavevector, which is parallel to Z.
