Research Article
Gaetano Assanto and Noel F Smy
Abstract
Two-dimensional optical vortex beams can propagate stably and undergo bending in nonlocal media with the aid of a spatial soliton, the latter preventing their destabilization and breakup. By colaunching a suitable pair of collinear soliton and vortex beams in nematic liquid crystals, we conduct a series of numerical experiments to demonstrate that the vortex beam can be made to propagate in the nematicon waveguide and follow its trajectory, even in the cases of refraction and total internal reflection at a dielectric interface. Modulation theory supports these findings and provides an excellent theoretical framework.