Optical self-confinement and waveguiding in planar nematic liquid crystals

A planar glass cell with slabs coated with ITO is employed to allow the application of an external AC voltage and silicon-oxide to establish the planar alignment of the directors. The undoped E7 nematic liquid crystal was used to fill up the cell. It is shown that the image of the self-trapped soliton for an input power of 4.2 mW and a bias of 1 V. No solitons were observed without bias and in the other polarization, in agreement with the experimental data. Moreover, it is verified that a weak collinear He-Ne probe was guided by the soliton only if copolarized with it, confirming the orientational nature of the observed phenomena.