Open AccessObservation of the photorefractive effects in bent-core liquid crystals
Author(s) -
Ying Xiang,
Yikun Liu,
Zhiyong Zhang,
Hong-Jun You,
Xiaodong Tian,
Everett Wang,
Zhengdong Cheng
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.21.003434
Subject(s) - photorefractive effect , liquid crystal , materials science , optics , bent molecular geometry , polarization (electrochemistry) , doping , core (optical fiber) , diffraction efficiency , refractive index , optoelectronics , grating , chemistry , physics , composite material
We present a new observation of photorefractive (PR) effects in bent-core nematic (BCN) liquid crystal (LC) materials, where two kinds of optical-induced gratings are demonstrated and compared in pure and surface-doped BCN systems. The experimental results showed that these two kinds of gratings exhibit distinctive different polarization-dependent and angular-dependent behaviors, respectively. Furthermore, we supplied the pure and surface-doped rodlike LC systems for comparison, which revealed that V shape molecular structure of BCN can produce charge carrier more efficiently than rodlike molecular structure does. Thus BCN materials can offer an exciting potential for optical information processing.