2007/12/05 by Viacheslav Kubytskyi, V. O. Kubytskyi, Victor Reshetnyak +8
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Molecular spectroscopy and chirality #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0712.0767
13 figures +latex file + bbl file in winzip file
arxiv created 2007/12/05 · openalex publication_date 2007/12/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We make a phenomenological model of optical two-beam interaction in a model planar liquid crystal cell. The liquid crystal is subject to homeotropic anchoring at the cell walls, is surrounded by thin photosensitive layers, and is subject to a variable potential across the cell. These systems are often known as liquid crystal photorefractive systems. The interference between the two obliquely incident beams causes a time-independent periodic modulation in electric field intensity in the direction transverse to the cell normal. Our model includes this field phenomenologically by affecting the potential at the walls of the cell. The transverse periodic surface potential causes spatially periodic departures from a pure homeotropic texture. The texture modulation acts as a grating for the incident light. The incident light is both directly transmitted and also subject to diffraction. The first diffracted beams result in energy exchange between the beams. We find that the degree of energy exchange can be strongly sensitive to the mean angle of incidence, the angle between the beams, and the imposed potential across the cell. We use the model to speculate about what factors optimize non-linear optical interaction in liquid crystalline photorefractive systems.