Optical isolation via direction-dependent soliton routing in birefringent soft matter

Opt Lett. 2022 Jun 1;47(11):2782-2785. doi: 10.1364/OL.459564.

Abstract

We introduce optical isolation based on reorientational solitary waves in nonuniformly oriented uniaxial soft matter, namely nematic liquid crystals. A longitudinally nonsymmetric angular distribution of the optic axis provides the system with direction-dependent routing, resulting in an all-optical diode owing to input-side sensitive steering. Numerical experiments demonstrate the phenomenon and its effectiveness in realistic samples.