Light and Complexity

Optomechanics deals with optically induced deformations. In a microstructured fiber, the high field intensity may lead to novel kind of optomechanical effects. Among these, there is the Kerr nonlocal optical response due to an optically induced deformation. A specific geometry has been considered by Anna Butsch, Claudio Conti, Fabio Biancalana and Philip St. J. Russell in arXiv:1108.5190.

In a dual slab waveguide geometry, embedded in a fiber, a novel form of optomechanical optical self-challenging, i.e., of non diffracting light beams, has been theoretically investigated, while identifying a novel and notable geometry for the generation of spatial solitons: a fiber!

Indeed, fibers were only known to host optical TEMPORAL solitons, but in this novel geometry, thanks to the impressive developments in the design and fabrication of microstructured fibers, SPATIAL solitons can propagate, potentially extending for several kilometers; this is a new frontier for self-trapped beams, in a word : OPTOMECHANICONS.