Routing of spatial solitons by interaction with rod microelectrodes.

We report on what is, to our knowledge, the first experimental observation of spatial soliton interaction with charged conductive microelectrodes in nematic liquid crystals. We show that solitons can undergo voltage-controlled deflection and reflection with a nematicon steering larger than 100° over distances of a few micrometers. Using bias-defined perturbations, we observe reconfigurable soliton geometries with several reflections.