Spontaneous formation of 3-D optical and structural lattices from two orthogonal and mutually incoherent beams of white light propagating in a photopolymerisable material

The spontaneous generation of 3-D lattices by an orthogonal pair of white light beams propagating in a polymerisable organosiloxane medium is described. Lattice formation occurs through polymerisation-induced modulation instability of the beams, each of which spontaneously divides into multiple self-trapped filaments. Dynamic interactions between the beams lead to a 3-D lattice with near-cubic symmetry, where each lattice point corresponds to …