Ten Thousand Peacock Feathers in Foaming Acid

Evelina DOMNITCH / Dmitry GELFAND

As a white laser scans the surfaces of soap bubble clusters, it generates a densely colored spherical projection of molecular interactions and mind-boggling non-linear optical phenomena. Unlike ordinary light, the laser’s focused beam crawls through the microscopic structures within a bubble’s skin, sometimes branching out into optical channels (spatial polariton solitons) that curve along the membrane. These optical tracks, which serve as light-confining waveguide antennae, are molded and elongated by the laser emission.