Optical nonlinearities of liquid crystals controlled by surfaces

摘要

We show that light-induced modification of the anchoring conditions can lead to an extraordinarily large optical response in dye-doped nematic liquid crystals. The bulk reorientation due to the collective elastic behavior of the liquid crystal is the origin of the nonlineariry, which occurs without a direct optical torque on the molecular director in the bulk. We call this effect SINE (Surface Induced Nonlinear Effect). These results can also explain the origin of the supranonlinear behavior recently observed in the same composites.