Surface reorientation dynamics of nematic liquid crystals

In this paper we report an experimental investigation on the dynamics of the azimuthal director reorientation at a nematic-solid interface. Three qualitatively different kinds of substrates have been investigated: I) intrinsically anisotropic SiO-substrates (-evaporation), II) isotropic SiO-substrates (-evaporation) and III) rubbed PVA-substrates. In the case II), an in-plane anisotropy was induced cooling slowly the thermotropic nematic liquid crystal (NLC) from the isotropic phase in the presence of a 0.75 T magnetic field. The reorientation dynamic of the surface azimuthal director angle at the switching-on and off of a magnetic (or electric) field has been investigated. All the substrates show comparable azimuthal anchoring energies and two dynamic regimes: a fast dynamic response, driven by the bulk director reorientation and an extremely slow reorientation. The slow dynamics is explained in terms of anisotropic adsorption of NLC molecules on the solid substrate and is well represented by a stretched exponential. Received 7 December 1998     

Thermomechanical reorientation in nematic liquid crystals

Thermomechanical mechanism of the director reorientation in twisted nematic liquid crystals caused by the one-dimensional longitudinal temperature gradient is predicted and studied theoretically. The calculated director reorientations are in the range that can be measured experimentally very easily.     

Surface polarity induced domains in liquid crystals

Observations that the free surface of liquid crystals sometimes break up into a pattern of regularly spaced domains are explained as originating from surface polarity. Linear coupling to the surface polarity demands some splay deformation and under appropriate conditions, this will require disclinations. Similar effects may occur with biological membranes.     

Director sliding induced by a circularly polarised light in dye-doped liquid crystals

We report the first detailed experimental study of the transient effects of a circularly polarised beam on dye-doped liquid crystal cells. Experiments show that, as linearly polarized light does, light with circular polarization induces quasi-free sliding of the molecular director on the irradiated surface. The behaviour of the sliding angle vs. the incident intensity, its dependence on the exposure time and its independence on the sign of the light ellipticity, suggest that the phenomenon is connected to surface effects instead of being directly due to the transfer of intrinsic angular momentum from light to the LC molecules.     

Image transfer by modulation of short light pulses

This paper shows that the Fourier-processing based modulation of short laser pulses can be successfully used for all-optical image transfer. The system under consideration consists of a transmitter, where the transferred image modulates the frequency profile of a carrier pulse, and a receiver, where after the reverse processing an original image is restored. The main limitations are discussed and the information capacity of a single pulse is obtained. The results from preliminary experiments using a CPM-ring dye laser as a source of carrier pulses are presented.     

Spatial reorientation of azobenzene side groups of a liquid crystalline polymer induced by linearly polarized light

The photoinduced 3D orientational structures in films of a liquid crystalline polyester, containing azobenzene side groups, are studied both experimentally and theoretically. By using the null ellipsometry and the UV/Vis absorption spectroscopy, the preferential in-plane alignment of the azobenzene fragments and in-plane reorientation under irradiation with linearly polarized UV light are established. The uniaxial and biaxial orientational order of the azobenzene chromophores are detected. The biaxiality is observed in the intermediate stages of irradiation, whereas the uniaxial structure is maintained in the photosaturated state of the photo-orientation process. The components of the order parameter tensor of the azobenzene fragments are estimated for the initial state and after different doses of irradiation. The proposed theory takes into account biaxiality of the induced structures. Numerical analysis of the master equations for the order parameter tensor is found to yield the results that are in good agreement with the experimental dependencies of the order parameter components on the illumination time. Received 23 April 2001 and Received in final form 1 August 2001     

Photonuclear reactions induced by intense short laser pulses

A measurement of the decay in time of nuclei excited by an intense short laser pulse of energy E₀$E_0$ yields the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation function of the associated scattering matrix. We determine the optimal length (in time) of the pulse and evaluate the time-decay function using random-matrix theory. That function is shown to contain information not otherwise available. We approximate that function in a manner that is useful for the analysis of data. For E₀$E_0$ below the threshold energy En$E_n$ of the first neutron channel, the time-decay function is exponential in time t while it is the product of an exponential and a power in t   for E₀>En$E_0>E_n$. The comparison of the measured decay functions in both energy domains yields an unambiguous and novel test of random-matrix theory in nuclei.     

Area of ultimately short light pulses

The evolution of the area of a pulse of optical radiation propagating in a nonlinear medium is analyzed. The role played by the medium relaxation and the correctness of the formulation of the problem on the propagation of short pulses are discussed.     

A light induced configurational change of FA centres in Li doped KCl-KBr crystals

Abstract

Spectroscopic properties of F_A centres in Li doped KCl-KBr mixed crystals were studied. At low temperature light induced spectral shifts, for the F_A1 hand towards lower energy and for the F_A2 band towards higher energy, were observed. The shifts are proposed to be due to a configurational change where the electron occupied vacancy finds a new location in relation to the neighbouring chlorine and bromine ions. The recovery to the original configuration, obtained in the F → F_A conversion, is a temperature activated process.     

Catastrophes and nonlinear dynamics in the standard geometry of optically induced reorientation of nematic liquid crystals

Discontinuities and hysteresis have been observed when controlling the orientation state of a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) with a single laser beam in standard geometry: the light beam of extraordinary polarization interacts with a homogeneously oriented NLC. In a certain range of control parameters (light intensity and incidence angle), the system exhibits a new phenomenon of nonlinear dynamics.     

Collective effects in doped nematic liquid crystals

We studied the collective elastic interaction in a system of many macroparticles embedded in a nematic liquid crystal. A theoretical approach to the interaction of macroparticles via deformation of the director field [1] is developed. It is found that the director field distortion induced by many particles leads to the screening of the elastic pair interaction potential. This screening strongly depends on the shape of the embedded particles: it exists for anisotropic particles and is absent for spherical ones. Our results are valid for the homeotropic and the planar anchoring on the particle surface and for different Frank constants. We apply our results to cylindrical particles in a nematic liquid crystal. In a system of magnetic cylindrical grains suspended in a nematic liquid crystal, the external magnetic field perpendicular to the grain orientation results in inclining the grains to the director and induces an elastic Yukawa-law attraction between the grains. The appearance of this elastic attraction can explain the cellular texture in magnetically doped liquid crystals in the presence of the magnetic field [2].     

Elasticity of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals probed by director reorientation in a magnetic field

Using a magnetic Frederiks transition technique, we measure the temperature and concentration dependences of splay K_{1}, twist K_{2}, and bend K_{3} elastic constants for the lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal sunset yellow formed through noncovalent reversible aggregation of organic molecules in water. K_{1} and K_{3} are comparable to each other and are an order of magnitude higher than K_{2}. At higher concentrations and lower temperatures, K_{1} and the ratios K_{1}/K_{3} and K_{1}/K_{2} increase, which is attributed to elongation of self-assembled lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal aggregates, a feature not found in conventional thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals formed by covalently bound units of a fixed length.     

Director reorientation in twisted nematic liquid crystals due to thermomechanical effect

We have studied molecular director reorientation in a twisted nematic liquid crystal induced by a two-dimensional temperature gradient. We studied the effect of rate change between the temperature gradients in two directions. Our obtained director reorientations are in the range that can be observed experimentally very easily.     

Magnetically induced Freedericksz transition and relaxation phenomena in nematic liquid crystals doped with azo-dyes

A static and dynamic investigation was performed on liquid crystal cells containing pure nematics and nematics doped with an azo-dye (Methyl Orange). It was found that the critical field for magnetic Freedericksz transition was decreased in samples containing the “trans” isomer and increased in those containing the “cis  ” isomer. Changes in the relaxation time _τA${\tau }_A$, _τB${\tau }_B$ intervening when switching on/off the magnetic field were also noticed. A theoretical model was elaborated to explain these phenomena.     

Self-action of short pulses in nonhomogeneous graded-index light guides

The weak nonlinear process of propagation of short pulses in graded-index light guides that are weakly inhomogeneous in the longitudinal direction and slightly bent is investigated by means of a consistent asymptotic method. The process as a whole is proved to be three-scale in respect to a small parameter related to the magnitude of nonlinearity. The phase of the most rapid process and transverse distribution of the wave field are expressed explicitly in terms of a certain Sturm-Liouville problem. For a pulse envelope the nonlinear Schrödinger equation is derived, its coefficients depending on the longitudinal coordinate. The existence of a guaranteed interval of conservation of concentration of the pulse envelope is ascertained. For a class of very smooth inhomogeneities formulae are obtained describing the variation of the amplitude and width of the pulse during propagation.     

Extremely short pulses via resonantly induced transparency

We study a novel method to produce extremely short pulses of radiation in a resonant medium via induced transparency by means of adiabatic periodic modulation of atomic transition frequencies by far-off-resonant laser field, which causes linear Stark splitting of atomic energy levels resulting in partial transparency of an optically deep medium and drastic spectral modification of an incident resonant radiation. We find the regimes where the output spectrum corresponds to extremely short pulses and discuss several possible experimental realizations of generation of attosecond pulses in Li²⁺ ions and femtosecond pulses in atomic hydrogen with commercially available facilities.     

高压重复频率快脉冲下变压器油中的闪络

介绍了重复频率快脉冲下固/液体介质交接面闪络初步的实验结果.脉冲功率源为基于半导体断路开关(SOS)的SPG200,固体介质为有机玻璃和尼龙,液体介质为变压器油.在相对低频阶段,闪络耐压时间与闪络场强随外加电压脉冲频率的增加非线性迅速减小,在约200 Hz以后,两者下降的趋势明显减缓.随着脉冲频率的增加,闪络耐压时间在统计上变小的同时,在一定区间内的分布也更均匀.分析表明,在不同实验条件下,重复频率显著低于单次下的沿面闪络和体击穿场强.两类场强都随脉冲频率增加非线性下降,在约200 Hz以后,下降的程度减弱.闪络场强随重复频率电压脉冲频率的变化表明,电压作用时间是绝缘介质击穿的根本要素,脉冲电压对绝缘介质的作用时间越长,沿面闪络越容易发生.