Beam deflection and negative drag in a moving nonlinear medium

Light propagating in a moving medium is subject to light drag. While the light drag effect due to the linear refractive index is often negligibly small, the light drag can be enhanced in materials with a large group index. Here we show that the nonlinear refractive index can also play a crucial role in the propagation of light in moving media and results in a beam deflection. We perform an experiment with a rotating ruby crystal that exhibits a very large negative group index and a positive nonlinear refractive index. The negative group index drags the light opposite to the motion of the medium. However, the positive nonlinear refractive index deflects the beam along with the motion of the medium and hinders the observation of the negative drag effect. Hence, we show that it is necessary to measure not only the transverse shift of the beam but also its output angle to discriminate the light drag effect from beam deflection. Our work provides insight into applications for all-optical control of light trajectories, particularly for beam steering, mode sorting, and velocimetry. (c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement