Nonlinear Light Scattering Supraoptical Nonlinearity of Liquid Crystals

NONLINEAR LIGHT SCATTERING SUPRAOPTICAL NONLINEARITY OF LIQUID CRYSTALS 

On the other hand, the energy provided by the light beam is 

Depending on various parameters such as the birefringence, viscosity, and sample thickness, and other factors such as laser intensity, presence of other apphed fields or photosensitive dopants, as well as the actual process involved, the value of 2 and the response time can vary considerably. In NLC, typical x is on the order of tens of milliseconds (lO s), for A 20 pm. Using K 10 erg/cm, rie-n 0.2, and a 100 cm we have 2 1 cm AV. Even larger W2 values can be expected. For example, if A 100 pm, x 1 s,. ST 10 , (n -n ) 0.4, and a 200 cm , we have 2 1000 cm /W Such incredibly large optical nonlinearity was first observed by Khoo et al. and more recently by Simoni et al. One could indeed look forward to even more pleasant surprises and nonlinear optical wonders to emerge from studies of hquid crystals in the near future. 

deGennes, P. G. 1974. The Physics of Liquid Crystals. Clarendon Oxford Press. 

Landau, L. D., and E. M. Lifshitz. 1960. Electrodynamics of Continuous Media. London Pergamon see also Jackson, J. D. 1963. Classical Electrodynamics. New York Wiley. 

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