Formation and transition of labyrinthine domain patterns in a nonlinear optical system - art. no. 013807

We report numerical and theoretical investigations of the formation and tra nsition of domain patterns in a two-dimensional optical system with cosine- type nonlinearity and a feedback loop. Labyrinthine stripe domain patterns of the electric field are observed in the system, intiated from the Turing instability. The labyrinths are found to undergo a transition to domain pat terns of coexisting stripes and hexagons and disordered hexagon domains on variation of the incident field intensity, a control parameter of the syste m. The parameter regions for these domain structures are explained through the existence and competition of stripes and hexagons in terms of their amp litude equations. Moreover, the transition from straight stripes to labyrin ths is investigated hy varying the feedback coupling coefficient of the sys tem. The transition is shown to be the consequence of coexistence of and in teraction between stripes and domain walls.