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Acta Physica Polonica A

Observation of Optical Bistability in Cholesteric Liquid Crystals

Bronislaw Pura, Irena Gronowska, J. Petykiewicz

Published Sep 1, 1997• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In the paper, some experimental and theoretical results concerning opatical bistability in cholesteric liquid crystals are presented.A strong primary laser beam interacted nonlinearly with the material and influenced a second (probe) beam in such a way that its transmitted part exhibited a bistable dependence on the intensity of the first beam.It was observed that such a character may be attributed to the intensity of the outgoing probe wave.The obtained results reflect the symmetry of the sample and are interpreted as second order nonlinearity effects.

DOI
10.12693/aphyspola.92.527

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In the paper, some experimental and theoretical results concerning opatical bistability in cholesteric liquid crystals are presented.A strong primary laser beam interacted nonlinearly with the material and influenced a second (probe) beam in such a way that its transmitted part exhibited a bistable dependence on the intensity of the first beam.It was observed that such a character may be attributed to the intensity of the outgoing probe wave.The obtained results reflect the symmetry of the sample and are interpreted as second order nonlinearity effects.
An analysis is made of nonlinear optical phenomena associated with a change in the orientation of the director of a liquid crystal induced by an optical field and resulting in optical bistability. The usual configurations with a nonlinear Fabry-Perot resonator and several other configurations are considered. Bistable cells with cholesterics are proposed: in these cells the nonlinearity is associated with the absorption of the incident and reflected light and is related—via the temperature of the cell—to the cholesteric helix period. Devices are considered in which switching from one state to another takes place as a result of a change in radiation parameters (such as the frequency or polarization) other than the power.
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.
Optical bistability and switching are of great interest in the rapidly and developing field of photonics. Devices that display this behavior could potentially play a major role in the development of optical communication systems and computing. In this article we present experimental results concerning the optical bistability in ferroelectric of photorefractive BaTiO3 crystal. Two laser beams were used to interact with the photorefractive crystal which resulted in the bistability of the intensity of transmitted wave. This was achieved without the application of any optical resonator. High contrast optical bistability is found experimentally in the pump-ratio dependence of the output intensity.
The physical aspects of the manifestation of optical bistability, instabilities, and stochasticity in strongly nonlinear media in the form of liquid crystals subjected to laser radiation fields are discussed. The stress is on experimental research. Optical bistability and multistability are considered for a number of light-induced effects in homogeneous and inhomogeneous liquid crystals. The special features of these effects in liquids crystals, associated with the field-induced structural phase transitions, are stressed and the concept of intrinsic (mirrorless) optical bistability is introduced. General nonlinear systems with optical bistability are considered. An analysis is made of instabilities and stochasticity manifested in experiments on light-induced reorientation of liquid crystals in the presence of fields of different origin, giving rise to oscillatory and chaotic processes in the case of self-modulation of the transmitted light.