Nonlinear photorefractive effects in liquid crystals

Author

Khoo, I.C. ; Li, H. ; Liang, Y.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA, USA

Volume

2

fYear

1994

fDate

31 Oct-3 Nov 1994

Firstpage

316

Abstract

In this paper, we present the first observation, to our knowledge, of orientational photorefractive [OPR] effects in nematic liquid crystal film. The effect is attributed to molecular axis reorientation caused by the combination of an applied dc field and the dc space charge field induced by the impinging optical field. The refractive index change is a Kerr-like phenomena, and is quadratically defendant on the electric field strength present, unlike the usual [linear] photorefractive effect. To generate such orientational photorefractive effect in aligned nematic liquid crystal films, the applied dc field strengths are on the order of 100 V/cm

Keywords

nematic liquid crystals; Kerr-like phenomena; aligned nematic liquid crystal films; applied dc field; applied dc field strengths; dc space charge field; electric field strength; impinging optical field; liquid crystals; molecular axis reorientation; nematic liquid crystal film; nonlinear photorefractive effects; orientational photorefractive effects; quadratically defendant; refractive index change; DC generators; Liquid crystals; Nonlinear optics; Optical films; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Photorefractive effect; Photorefractive materials; Refractive index; Space charge;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting, 1994. LEOS '94 Conference Proceedings. IEEE

Conference_Location

Boston, MA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1470-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LEOS.1994.586583

Filename

586583