Propagation of nematicons in unbiased configurations: Spiraling solitons

In this work we present numerical results on the propagation of high power laser beams in nematic liquid crystals. The optical nonlinearity of the liquid crystal gives rise to self-focusing and the generation of spatial optical solitons. We consider only configurations in which no bias voltage is necessary for the generation of the spatial optical soliton. One of the configurations considered here is one where the liquid crystal twists along the thickness of the layer over an angle of 180°. This configuration leads to spiraling solitons when the beam is injected with a certain offset with respect to the middle of the liquid crystal layer. The sign of the initial angle of the beam is depending on the sign of the offset.