Abstract

We investigate light self-trapping and nematicon generation in reorientional nematic liquid crystals, addressing the role of phase-front curvature and size of the ${\mathrm{TEM}}_{00}$ input beam excitation. The experimental results in planar cells are in excellent agreement with a semi-analytical model and numerical simulations. These findings can substantially aid characterization and generation of spatial solitons in liquid crystals and be readily generalized to other nonlocal nonlinear media and soft matter systems.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

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