Orbital angular momentum of helical necklace beams in colloid-based nonlinear optical metamaterials
(Conference Presentation)

Wiktor T. Walasik; Salih Z. Silahli; Natalia M. Litchinitser

doi:10.1117/12.2237790

9 November 2016 Orbital angular momentum of helical necklace beams in colloid-based nonlinear optical metamaterials (Conference Presentation)

Wiktor T. Walasik, Salih Z. Silahli, Natalia M. Litchinitser

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9918, Metamaterials, Metadevices, and Metasystems 2016; 99182C (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2237790
Event: SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering, 2016, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Colloidal metamaterials are a robust and flexible platform for engineering of optical nonlinearities and studies of light filamentation. To date, nonlinear propagation and modulation instability of Gaussian beams and optical vortices carrying orbital angular momentum were studied in such media. Here, we investigate the propagation of necklace beams and the conservation of the orbital angular momentum in colloidal media with saturable nonlinearity. We study various scenarios leading to generation of helical necklace beams or twisted beams, depending on the radius, power, and charge of the input vortex beam. Helical beams are build of two separate solitary beams with circular cross-sections that spiral around their center of mass as a result of the equilibrium between the attraction force of in-phase solitons and the centrifugal force associated with the rotational movement. A twisted beam is a single beam with an elliptical cross-section that rotates around it's own axis. We show that the orbital angular momentum is converted into the rotational motion at different rates for helical and twisted beams. While earlier studies reported that solitary beams are expelled form the initial vortex ring along straight trajectories tangent to the vortex ring, we show that depending on the charge and the power of the initial beam, these trajectories can diverge from the tangential direction and may be curvilinear. These results provide a detailed description of necklace beam dynamics in saturable nonlinear media and may be useful in studies of light filamentation in liquids and light propagation in highly scattering colloids and biological samples.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Wiktor T. Walasik, Salih Z. Silahli, and Natalia M. Litchinitser "Orbital angular momentum of helical necklace beams in colloid-based nonlinear optical metamaterials (Conference Presentation)", Proc. SPIE 9918, Metamaterials, Metadevices, and Metasystems 2016, 99182C (9 November 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2237790

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members: $17.00

Non-members: $21.00 ADD TO CART

PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTATION

WATCH
PRESENTATION SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

KEYWORDS

Metamaterials

Nonlinear optics

Beam propagation method

Dynamic light scattering

Gaussian beams

Liquids

Modulation

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years