Optical Nonlinearities and Enhanced Light Transmission in Soft-Matter Systems with Tunable Polarizabilities

    Authors

    W. N. Man; S. Fardad; Z. Zhang; J. Prakash; M. Lau; P. Zhang; M. Heinrich; D. N. Christodoulides;Z. G. Chen

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Phys. Rev. Lett.

    Keywords

    SELF-INDUCED TRANSPARENCY; SPATIAL SOLITONS; POLYMER-SOLUTIONS; MEDIA; INSTABILITIES; MANIPULATION; SUSPENSIONS; Physics, Multidisciplinary

    Abstract

    We demonstrate a new class of synthetic colloidal suspensions capable of exhibiting negative polarizabilities, and observe for the first time robust propagation and enhanced transmission of self-trapped light over long distances that would have been otherwise impossible in conventional suspensions with positive polarizabilities. Such light penetration through the strong scattering environment is attributed to the interplay between optical forces and self-activated transparency effects while no thermal effect is involved. By judiciously mixing colloidal particles of both negative and positive polarizabilities, we show that the resulting nonlinear response of these systems can be fine-tuned. Our experimental observations are in agreement with theoretical analysis based on a thermodynamic model that takes into account particle-particle interactions. These results may open up new opportunities in developing soft-matter systems with engineered optical nonlinearities.

    Journal Title

    Physical Review Letters

    Volume

    111

    Issue/Number

    21

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    5

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000327246200005

    ISSN

    0031-9007

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