Necklace Beam Generation in Nonlinear Colloidal Engineered Media

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that low-intensity vortex beams can generate necklace beams through modulational instability in engineered soft-matter nonlinear media, potentially enabling new low-power nonlinear optical applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for necklace beam generation at low intensities via spatial modulational instability in engineered media.

Findings

Necklace beams can be generated from low-intensity vortex beams.

Analytical and numerical methods confirm the instability mechanism.

Potential for low-power nonlinear optical device development.

Abstract

Modulational instability is a phenomenon that reveals itself as the exponential growth of weak perturbations in the presence of an intense pump beam propagating in a nonlinear medium. It plays a key role in such nonlinear optical processes as supercontinuum generation, light filamentation, and rogue waves. However, practical realization of these phenomena in the majority of available nonlinear media still relies on high-intensity optical beams. Here, we analytically and numerically show the possibility of necklace beam generation originating from low-intensity spatial modulational instability of vortex beams in engineered soft-matter nonlinear media.