Propagation and diffraction of a light beam through nonlinear materials are effectively compensated by the effect of selftrapping. The laser beam propagating through photo-sensitive polymer PVA/AA can generate a waveguide of higher refractive index in direction of the light propagation. In order to investigate this phenomenon occurring in light-sensitive photopolymer media, the behaviour of a single light beam focused on the front surface of photopolymer bulk is investigated. As part of this work the self-bending of parallel beams separated in spaces during self-writing waveguides are studied. It is shown that there is strong correlation between the intensity of the input beams and their separation distance and the resulting deformation of waveguide trajectory during channels formation. This self-channeling can be modelled numerically using a three-dimension model to describe what takes place inside the volume of a photopolymer media. Corresponding numerical simulations show good agreement with experimental observations, which confirm the validity of the numerical model that was used to simulate these experiments.

Date Published: 16 May 2017
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 10228, Nonlinear Optics and Applications X, 1022805 (16 May 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2263749

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10228:
Nonlinear Optics and Applications X
Mario Bertolotti; Joseph W. Haus; Alexei M. Zheltikov, Editor(s)