Photoconducting polymer hybrid liquid crystal structures used as optical gain media

Andrzej Miniewicz; Stanislaw Bartkiewicz; Francois Kajzar

doi:10.1117/12.328574

29 October 1998 Photoconducting polymer hybrid liquid crystal structures used as optical gain media

Andrzej Miniewicz, Stanislaw Bartkiewicz, Francois Kajzar

Proceedings Volume 3474, Second-Order Organic Nonlinear Optics; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.328574
Event: SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1998, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

The high-performance photorefractive polymer hybrid liquid crystal structures are investigated in detail by use of optical tow-wave mixing technique. In such structures an amplification of laser light can be realized by two-beam coupling mechanism. Photorefractive properties of the structures rely on the spatial light induced charge carrier density modulation in thin film of photoconducting polymer. The spatially modulated space-charge field induces efficient reorientations of molecules of adjacent to polymeric layer nematic liquid crystal forming, in this way, the refractive index grating. Efficient energy transfer between the incident and the higher-order diffracted beams has been observed in dynamic self-diffraction process on thin phase gratings at oblique light incidence. The phase shift between the light intensity pattern the light intensity pattern and the refractive index modulation grating, responsible for the energy exchange, can be controlled by the applied electric field enabling reversal of direction of energy flow. Energy transfer and diffraction efficiency are found to exhibit different response characteristics with fringe spacing, voltage, cell parameters and light modulation-depth. The net exponential gain coefficient reported for the structures amounted to (Gamma) approximately equals 2600 cm$_-1) and was obtained at driving voltages of the order of 1 V/micrometers .

Citation Download Citation

Andrzej Miniewicz, Stanislaw Bartkiewicz, and Francois Kajzar "Photoconducting polymer hybrid liquid crystal structures used as optical gain media", Proc. SPIE 3474, Second-Order Organic Nonlinear Optics, (29 October 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.328574

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