Experimental results on the light propagation in a nonlinear waveguide with nematic liquid crystal: Hybrid alignment case.

The light propagation in a LC nonlinear planar waveguide is studied for both TE and TM polarization states of incident light. Two different nematic liquid crystal samples were employed with hybrid alignment in a special guiding structure ad hoc realized for this work. The experimental results show that the guided modes are affected by the incident light power. In particular, the power exchange of the propagating light between different modes was studied in detail.