Albeit, the first observations of lasing from liquid-crystal media were recorded forty years ago, still the engineering of materials and microstructures providing laser light on-demand, generated in-situ, seems to be one of the most important fields of photonic materials engineering. Here we give a snapshot of the research done on laser emission from different liquid-crystal media and structures.
An extended study of the lasing induced in various periodic, self-assembled LC structures and artificial resonant structures tuned with liquid crystals is presented. We show observations of lasing obtained in dual-frequency-based, near defect-less, cholesteric structures, exhibiting a relatively big Q-factor. We report newly observed, topologically protected lasing from 3D, dye-doped, highly ordered macroscopic (of the diameter of several millimeters) monodomain samples of blue phase structures BFI and BFII.
The unique lasing with two coherent beams with an opposite circular polarization, emitted from the custom-made microcavity formed between two, distributed Bragg reflectors is shown. An emission from a similar cavity with a perovskite emitter is also discussed.
We realize a tunable laser based on a liquid crystal optical microcavity doped with the pyrromethene 580 organic dye. The tunable range reaches 40 nm. By transforming the system into the Rashba-Dresselhaus coupling regime, the laser action takes place from the bottoms of two oppositely polarized valleys shifted apart in reciprocal space. Measurements of emissions in real space show the persistent spin-helix lasing, which is a consequence of the spin coherence of the system. The platform that we propose can be used in quantum communication, in which information is encoded through light polarization.
In this work we realize an optical resonator incorporating nematic liquid crystal in which photonic cavity modes are in strong light-matter coupling regime with excitons in a 2D organic-inorganic perovskite layer. Using electric field tunability provided by the liquid crystal we can bring our structure to the regime of Rashba-Dresselhaus spin orbit coupling. By a preparation of the orienting polymer layers within the cavity to break inversion symmetry of the liquid crystal layer we were able to engineer polariton energy band structure exhibiting locally non-zero photonic Berry curvature, which can be tuned by an external electric field.
In this paper a two liquid crystal (LC) modulators for mid-wave infrared radiation (MWIR) are presented. A two electrooptical effects (EOE) in liquid crystalline structures have been utilized for MWIR modulation: electric field induced cholesteric - nematic (Ch-N*) phase transition (ChN mode) and switching of the twisted-nematic (TN) structure (TN mode). At the Ch-N* mode an intensity modulation depth was of order of 15% but there wasn’t a dark state. In case of the modulation induced at TN mode was near full. These modulators are quite slow, switching times are order of a few hundreds of milliseconds for Ch-N* mode electrooptical effect and dozens of minutes in case of TN mode.
It is well known that the Young interference experiment is the fundamental setup to combine two beams and to construct the phase modulated light. Moreover, homodyne phase demodulator is based on signal decoding in back Fourier focal plane using bicell photodetector (B-PD). On the above base, we propose a novel experimental approach to the signals demodulation by using the optical interferometer which operates in homodyne mode, combined with liquid crystal spatial light modulators operating both phase as speckle modulator. Dynamic phase changes between the two beams can be controlled by monopixel liquid crystals cell placed in one branch of the interferometer. A phase modulation effect in a signal arm of interferometer is observed as a dynamic shift of the speckle pattern. Simple arithmetic combination of signals from B-PD placed in speckle pattern plane is only one necessary numerical manipulation to obtain exactly phase difference. Concept of signals demodulation in the Fourier focal plane can be only used for exactly defined geometrical (B-PD as well as Young interferometer) and physical parameters (polarization, wavelength). We optimize the setup geometry to obtain extremely high measurement resolution. In this paper we focus on the principles of operation of each part of the system as well as discussion their requirement in order to increase the signal to noise ratio.
Recently the investigation in the field of LCD technology has been boosted by the availability of new materials. The new group of fluorinated mesogens has been recently synthesized in Poland. In this work we have been focused on investigations of properties of materials having the broad temperature range of antiferroelectric phase. Such key factors as apparent tilt angle and structural properties and electro-optical performance have been studied by means of electro-optical and X-ray methods. The bend molecular shape and the presence of fluorinated tail has been assumed as a factor leading to an extremely high apparent optical tilt. The length of the fluorinated chain seems to affect th mesogenic behavior.
Wedge cells of the wedge angle of order of few milliradians were used to measure the threshold voltages for the Freedericksz transition in electric and magnetic fields crossed. A nematic liquid crystal, PCB, filling cells was of planar orientation enforced by the treatment of the flat boundary plates, covered with poly(amic acid) PM9. A system of interference fringes appeared in each cell placed in normally incident light between analyzer and polarizer crossed. In the vicinity of each fringe a cell could be considered as a flat-parallel one and hence it was equivalent to the system of flat cells of different precisely determined thickness. Threshold voltages, parameterized by magnetic field magnitudes were interpreted as the eigenvalues of the boundary eigenvalue problem for the operator of the second derivative; the interaction between the nematics and the substrates was assumed very strong with the anchoring direction parallel to the cell boundaries. The resulting formulae were used to determine the anisotropy of diamagnetic susceptibility and the splay elastic constant of PCB after the threshold magnitudes measured. The estimates of material parameters agreed well with those determined by the composite method.
Rotational potential of molecule in smectic phases, introduced by Zeks, includes two important parts: dipolar as well as quadrupolar ones. The first part is valid for chiral molecules only, whereas the second one is important for chiral and achiral molecules. The question arises: "Whether shape of rotational potential changes when the phase transition between SmC* and SmCA* appears?" In our opinion, close to the temperature of phase transition (FLC-AFLC) magnitudes of both, dipolar and quadrupolar parts change. Quadrupolar coupling is more important for antiferroelectric phase, while dipolar factor overwhelms quadrupolar one, for ferroelectric phase.
For many years scientists have tried to study `improper' spontaneous polarization occurred in ferroelectric liquid crystals. In this work we present our theoretical and experimental results concerning behavior of the spontaneous polarization PS of several compounds with the `ordinary' spontaneous polarization as well as PS with sing inversion.
The practical applications of the composite method of determination of nematic liquid crystal material parameters (namely the splay and bend elastic constants, the anisotropy of diamagnetic susceptibility and the boundary tilt angle) is presented in the article. The director field value at the nematics cell boundaries is described as a function of the torque transmitted from the deformed bulk, modeling the coupling between the nematics and the substrate. The method is based on approximate solving the coefficient inverse problem. The applied procedure of determination of material parameters may be divided into three stages.
The rotational viscosity γφ has been studied for SmC* phase of ferroelectric liquid crystal mixtures containing a different amount of the same chiral dopant. Goldstone mode rotational viscosity γφ has been determined by two different methods. The first one is an electrooptical method, the second is a dielectric method using samples with unperturbed helicoidal structure. This method is based on measurements of Goldstone mode dielectric strength and relaxation frequency supplemented with values of the spontaneous polarization, the tilt angle. The rotational viscosity has been presented as a function of chiral dopant concentration and as a function of temperature. Results have been discussed in context of the dynamics of the structure under electric field.
The helical pitch for cholesteric and ferroelectric Sm C* phases has been measured. For cholesteric and also for Sm C* measurements have been done for several mixtures characterized by various concentration of chiral molecules. They have been done in planar geometry for cholesteric phase and in homeotropic geometry for Sm C* phase. Measurements involving reflection and transmission modes have been carried out. It has been used Grandjean-Cano method. We have done conoscopic and orthoscopic observations. Sign of the chirality has been found by Airy's spires method.
Jerzy Kedzierski, Zbigniew Raszewski, Marek Kojdecki, Jolanta Rutkowska, Pawel Perkowski, Wiktor Piecek, Jerzy Zielinski, Jozef Zmija, Ludwika Lipinska
Optical and dielectric properties of two liquid crystals, the well-known PCB and the equimolar mixture of Demus esters, have been investigated. A semi-empirical method to determine the liquid crystal-substrate interaction potential has been employed. By applying the self-consistent director field method and the effective electric permittivity measurements the liquid crystal-substrate interaction potential values have been estimated.
Information on anisotropy of the local field of light wave in nematics is obtained mainly from refractivity measurements. Such investigations, supplemented by those concerning thermal dependence of density (rho) (T), allow for determining optical polarizability anisotropy of nematogenic molecules, as well as their orientational order parameter. On the basis of extensive experimental data, this paper discusses the following problems: applicability of approximate relations between refractive indices of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) and their molecular parameters for describing optical properties of nematic mesophase has been estimated; anisotrpoy of the local field factor Fk has been investigated, as well as its influence on calculated anisotropy of molecular polarizability. Influence of various extrapolation procedures on calculated molecular parameters of the NLCs has been investigated.
Chiral 4-(2'-methylbutyl)-phenyl-4'-octylbiphenyl-4-carboxylate (CE8) has been studied by dielectric, densitometric, refractometric, and x-ray measurements. On the basis of these measurements the effective value of the molecular dipole moment ((mu) ), the angle between the vector of the molecular dipole moment and the long axis of molecule ((gamma) ) as well as the transverse ((alpha) t) and longitudinal ((alpha) 1) molecular polarizabilities have been calculated. In addition the sign and the magnitude of spontaneous polarization (Ps), the tilt angle ((Theta) ), and the helical pitch (gamma) have been measured for the same liquid crystal CE8. Knowing the molecular parameters (mu) , (gamma) , (alpha) t, (alpha) 1, and (Theta) from the experiment and the molecular structure from computer investigation, the spontaneous polarization Ps has been calculated as the vector sum of the components of molecular dipole moments (mu) perpendicular to the tilt direction. To do it the rotational potential given by B. Zeks has been used. According to this approximation, the measured spontaneous polarization Ps is induced by hindered rotation of the molecules around their long axes and is expressed by molecular parameters (mu) , (gamma) , (alpha) t, (alpha) 1, tilt angle (Theta) and the hindered rotation parameter (eta) . The hindered rotation parameter for CE8 shows that dipolar ordering in this smectic C* phase is rather weak in comparison to the strong orientational order of long molecular axes of the same phase.
The chosen results of investigations of internal and external diffraction maximum, using a transmission beam to freely suspended `thick' and `thin' films of smectic LC, are presented. On the basis of these results the way to the generalization of the Moncton-Pindac method was illustrated. Our generalization of the Moncton-Pindac method can be distinguished from the other methods by study of internal diffraction maximum using reflected (instead of transmission) beam. It is important that the film placed on a heated plate has only one free surface. In commonly used methods, the investigated film has two free surfaces. Some results of diffractometer measurements are presented as examples of studies using the generalized Moncton-Pindac method. Possible experiments using this method, advantages, and inconveniences are discussed.
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