Controlling light in Airy and higher-order caustic photonic structures

Zannotti Alessandro, Diebel Falko, Rüschenbaum Matthias, Denz Cornelia

Abstract

Caustics form geometrically stable structures in light and are hierarchically categorized by the catastrophe theory. We embed higher-order cusp and swallowtail catastrophes in paraxial beams and investigate their dynamics. Utilizing high-intensity caustics that propagate on curved trajectories, we realize photonic caustic lattices in photosensitive media, and demonstrate waveguiding with a rich diversity of light guiding paths.