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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Nonlinear liquid crystalline directional coupler

Mirosław A. Karpierz, Marcin Świłło, Tomasz R. Woliński, Marek Wojciech Sierakowski, Andrzej W. Domański

Published Feb 1, 1998• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A polished fiber half coupler with a nematic liquid crystal as a multimode planar waveguide overlay has been investigated. Experimental results show an existence of optical bistability with contrast approximately 40 percent for laser power approximately 340mW at (lambda) equals 514 nm. Observation of the optical bistability is explained as a result of an optically induced reorientational effect in a liquid crystalline layer.

DOI
10.1117/12.300013

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A polished fiber half coupler with a nematic liquid crystal as a multimode planar waveguide overlay has been investigated. Experimental results show an existence of optical bistability with contrast approximately 40 percent for laser power approximately 340mW at (lambda) equals 514 nm. Observation of the optical bistability is explained as a result of an optically induced reorientational effect in a liquid crystalline layer.
Abstract Molecular reorientation and laser heating induced by an optical field can yield significant changes in the refractive indices in a nematic liquid crystal. A c.w. laser beam is intense enough to induce a phase retardation much larger than 2pi in a nematic film less than 100 pm thick. Optical bistability in such a film sandwiched between mirrors can be readily observed. Coupling between the two mechanisms for induced refractive indices can lead to interesting results in the bistable operation.
We have studied theoretically and experimentally the nonlinear Fabry-Perot transmission of a cavity with a thin nematic liquid-crystal film. Various modes of operation have been observed, using a moderate-power cw laser. In the limit of small reorientation angles, the optically induced molecular reorientation of the birefringent crystal and the nonlinear phase shift is solved for a homeotropically aligned crystal. Multiple-valued Fabry-Perot transmission is obtained by solving the nonlinear equations that couple the optical phase shift with the cavity transmission. The time-independent nature of the process and the explicit quantitative expressions involving the nematic liquid-crystal parameters allow a direct comparison between the thoery and experimental results. Good quantitative agreement is demonstrated.