Optochemical organization in a spatially modulated incandescent field: a single-step route to black and bright polymer lattices.

We report that incandescent beams patterned with amplitude depressions (dips) suffer instability in a photopolymerizable system and organize into lattices of black and bright self-trapped beams propagating respectively, through self-induced black and bright waveguides. Such optochemically organized lattices emerge when beams embedded with a hexagonal or square array of dips initiate free-radical polymerization and corresponding changes in refractive index (Δn) along their propagation paths. Under these nonlinear conditions, the dips evolve into a hexagonal or square lattice of black beams, while their bright interstitial regions become unstable and divide spontaneously into multiple filaments of light.

A black beam borne by an incandescent field self-traps in a photopolymerizing medium.

We report that a self-trapped black optical beam that is spatially and temporally incoherent forms spontaneously in a nascent photopolymerization system. The black beam inscribes a permanent cylindrical channel, which prevents the propagation of visible light even under passive conditions (in the absence of polymerization). The finding opens a powerful new mechanism to manipulate light signals from incoherent sources such as LEDs through selective suppression of light propagation.

Self-trapping of spatially and temporally incoherent white light in a photochemical medium.

We report that a beam of spatially and temporally incoherent white light self-traps by initiating free-radical polymerization in an organosiloxane medium. Refractive index changes due to polymerization lead to the formation of a narrow channel waveguide that traps and guides the entire multimode, broadband beam without diffraction. The response time of the system, which is determined by the inherently slow rate of free-radical polymerization, exceeds by several orders of magnitude the femtosecond-scale random phase fluctuations that characterize white light.