2007/02/16 by Umberto Bortolozzo, A. Montina, Fortunato Tito Arecchi +2
Physics and Astronomy · #nlin.AO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.023901
arxiv created 2007/02/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
A nonlinear optical medium results by the collective orientation of liquid crystal molecules tightly coupled to a transparent photoconductive layer. We show that such a medium can give a large gain, thus, if inserted in a ring cavity, it results in an unidirectional optical oscillator. Dynamical regimes with many interacting modes are made possible by the wide transverse size and the high nonlinearity of the liquid crystals. We show the generation of spatiotemporal pulses, coming from the random superposition of many coexisting modes with different frequencies.