Dipole azimuthons and vortex charge flipping in nematic liquid crystals

Yana V. Izdebskaya*, Anton S. Desyatnikov, Gaetano Assanto, Yuri S. Kivshar

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    47 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We demonstrate self-trapped laser beams carrying phase singularities in nematic liquid crystals. We experimentally observe the astigmatic transformation of vortex beams into spiraling dipole azimuthons accompanied by power-dependent charge-flipping of the on-axis phase singularity. The latter topological reactions involve triplets of vortex lines and resemble pitchfork bifurcations.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)21457-21466
    Number of pages10
    JournalOptics Express
    Volume19
    Issue number22
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 24 Oct 2011

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