Nonlinear refractive index induced collision and propagation of nematicons

Abstract Nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) have proved to be excellent materials for nonlinear optics and its applications because of their large nonresonant nonlinearity and their extended spectral transparency. We demonstrate the exemplary collision scenario of both optical solitons and nematicons induced by the nonlinear refractive index in nematic liquid crystals. We invoke Hirota's bilinearization method for two coupled partial differential equations governing the dynamics of self-focusing of a laser light in a nematic liquid crystal system. We believe that this type of collision of optical solitons and nematicons reveals the many possibilities of all-optical switching schemes for spatial demultiplexing, network reconfiguration and logic gates.