All-optical deflection induced by cross-phase modulation in solutions of beta-carotene with CW lasers

"All-optical deflection has been obtained with a CW laser and hexane solution of beta-carotene. The mechanism exploited to obtain angular deflection was theoretically proposed by Agrawal and is based on the cross-phase modulation between two beams propagating in a nonlinear medium in the self-defocusing regime. The pump laser intensity is 510 W/cm2 and the maximum ratio of angular deflection obtained was approximately 1mrad. This material may find applications in optical communications as in ultrafast optical deflectors or space division all-optical switches."