Anisotropic nematicons and voltage-controlled steering in liquid crystals

This paper reports on propagation of solitons in a highly birefringent medium, using a novel geometry to encompass a voltage controlled angle between the NLC optical axis and the direction of propagation. The bias results into a rotation of the extraordinary plane as the voltage controlled angle increases, and hence into adjustable walk-off on the self-trapped beam. Remarkably, this study proves that nematicons can propagate at arbitrarily large walk off angles of size determined by the external voltage.