Interplay between diffraction and the Pancharatnam-Berry phase in inhomogeneously twisted anisotropic media

We discuss the propagation of an electromagnetic field in an inhomogeneously anisotropic material where the optic axis is rotated in the transverse plane but is invariant along the propagation direction. In such a configuration, the evolution of an electromagnetic wave packet is governed by the Pancharatnam-Berry phase (PBP), which is responsible for the appearance of an effective photonic potential. In a recent paper [ACS Photon. 3, 2249 (2016)] we demonstrated that the effective potential supports transverse confinement. Here we find the profile of the quasimodes and show that the photonic potential arises from the Kapitza effect of light. The theoretical results are confirmed by numerical simulations, accounting for the medium birefringence. Finally, we analyze in detail a configuration able to support nonleaky guided modes.