Optical and dielectric studies of gel grown α-hopeite single crystal

Single crystals of α-hopeite exhibiting high transparency were grown by single diffusion gel growth technique. Single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that the crystal belongs to orthorhombic system. The values of several structural and physical parameters have been determined for the grown crystal. The optical absorption study reveals the transparency of the crystal and is noticed in the entire visible region and the cut-off wavelength was found to be 230 nm. The optical band gap found to be at 3.25 eV. The dependence of extinction co-efficient (k) and the refractive index (n) on the wavelength was also shown. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the crystal was studied as a function of frequency and temperature. Transport properties of the grown crystal have been studied from the Cole-Cole plot.     

含特异材料一维超导光子晶体的带隙特性研究

利用传输矩阵法研究了含特异材料的一维超导光子晶体的带隙特性. 研究表明, 这类超导光子晶体同样具有由传统的电介质材料构成的超导光子晶体一样的低频带隙, 且在一定的参数下该低频带隙可以相当宽. 但在一定的结构参数下, 这类超导光子晶体同完全由传统的电介质构成的光子晶体一样不存在低频带隙. 还就超导光子晶体的偏振特性、光子晶体结构参数及环境温度的变化对光子带隙结构的影响进行了研究. 关键词： 超导光子晶体 传输矩阵法 特异材料 光子带隙     

Crystal stability and the theory of ferroelectricity

The phenomenon of ferroelectricity in pseudo-cubic crystals is discussed in terms of the normal modes of vibration. It is shown that the parameters which determine the lattice vibrations of a diatomic ionic crystal may be chosen in such a way that the crystal will exhibit ferroelectric properties, and that ferroelectric or anti-ferroelectric transitions may be regarded as the result of an instability of the crystal for a certain normal mode of vibration. The theory is extended to apply to other cubic crystals, including barium titanate, and the concepts of ‘ionic polarizability’ and ‘a polarizability catastrophe’ are discussed in terms of lattice dynamics. Certain of the parameters which appear in Devonshire's phenomenological theory of ferroelectricity are found to be expressible in terms of atomic parameters. Values for the latter which are physically reasonable are found to account quite well for the dielectric properties of barium titanate and for the relative movements of the atoms which occur at the cubic-tetragonal transition. The lowest dielectric dispersion frequency is calculated to be about 3 × 10¹¹ c.p.s. for barium titanate, and to be a function of temperature in the cubic phase. Other predictions of the theory are discussed.     

Modeling and design of an optimized patterned electrode liquid crystal microlens array with dielectric slab

To eliminate the occurrence of disclination lines in the hole patterned electrode liquid crystal microlens array (LC MLA), inserting an ultrathin dielectric slab was proved to be an effective method. The thickness of the dielectric slab played an important role in effecting the optical performance of the liquid crystal microlens array device, including the dynamic focal range, focus diameter and symmetry of phase profile. In this paper, we studied the effect of dielectric slab thickness on the optical performance of the liquid crystal microlens array by numerical simulation. It is indicated that the optical performance of the device could be improved by reducing the dielectric slab thickness, assuming that the dielectric slab thickness was larger than the threshold thickness. The dependence of the threshold thickness on some key parameters was investigated and the associated effect on the optical performance by changing these key parameters was also studied. In the end, the approaches to enhance the optical performance, namely the dynamic focal range of the liquid crystal microlens array was proposed and proved to be in effect by numerical simulation results.     

Magnetic field effects on the electric modulus properties of nematic mixture E7

The molecular dynamics of the homogeneously aligned nematic liquid crystal mixture E7 subject to a magnetic field has been studied. The dielectric spectra study has revealed a low bias magnetic field effect on the evolution of dielectric relaxation spectra occurred at lower (∼kHz) (δ-relaxation) and higher (∼MHz) (α-relaxation) frequency regions. The complex electric modulus, which converted from experimental dielectric spectra, has been analyzed with theoretical model of Debye relaxation. The obtained fitting parameters of relaxation time and strength of dielectric components are shown to vary systematically with the strength of applied magnetic field. A microscopic molecular dynamic model has been proposed to describe the two-step variation of E7 molecular under the bias magnetic field. The results provide implication for magneto-modulation of liquid crystal molecular dynamics under the bias magnetic field.     

Photonic-crystal waveguide for the second-harmonic generation

The possibility of efficient second-harmonic generation in the optical range in a planar dielectric waveguide with the active region in the form of a one-dimensional photonic crystal has been theoretically shown. The true phase matching can be achieved by controlling wave dispersion in the photonic crystal. The dispersion equations for the photonic crystal and three-layer waveguide have been self-consistently solved. It is shown that the coherence length may exceed 10 mm.     

Light transmission through a stack of right- and left-hand cholesteric liquid crystal layers with indefinite dielectric and magnetic permittivities. II. Optical diode

Optical properties of a stack of layers of right- and left-hand cholesteric liquid crystal with locally indefinite dielectric and magnetic permittivities are investigated. The problem is solved by the modified Ambartsumian’s layer addition method. The peculiarities of nonreciprocity of this system are studied and it is shown that at certain values of system parameters it can work as a practically perfect optical diode.     

Optical properties of chiral photonic crystals with graded modulation parameters

The oblique transmission of light through a layer of a chiral photonic crystal with graded modulated parameters is considered. The problem is solved by the Ambartsumian’s layer addition method. Dependences of amplitude characteristics on the wavelength at different incident angels are presented for two cases: namely, for the case of a chiral photonic crystal with a linearly varied spatial period of modulation and in the case of a chiral photonic crystal with a linearly varied spatial depth of modulation. The case of a minimal influence of dielectric boundaries is considered. It is shown that in both cases a broadening of the photonic forbidden band gap takes place.     

Dielectric heating and relaxations in smectic a liquid crystals

The dependence of the temperature changes ΔT on frequency occurring in the smectic A, nematic and isotropic phase of a positive dielectric liquid crystal material initiated by dielectric heating is investigated. The same relaxation mechanism governing the strong increase of ΔT in nematics is shown to be responsible for inducing comparably strong dielectric heating effects in smectic A phases.     

Theoretical modelling of infrared spectra of the twinned lead zirconate

The THz-frequency range dispersion of the complex dielectric permittivity tensor of antiferroelectric lead zirconate, associated with its multiple weak infrared active phonon modes, is modelled by the oscillator formula with parameters fully determined from the recently developed atomistic shell model. The resulting realistic dielectric function is used to estimate the far-infrared reflectivity spectra of a twinned lead zirconate crystal in the limit of narrow and wide domains. It is shown that in case of the sufficiently narrow domain widths, the effective-medium average permittivity shows additional modes identified as geometric resonances (i.e. extraneous excitations created by material interfaces), possibly distinguishable in suitable experiments.     

Effect of electric field on the dielectric permittivity of betaine phosphite crystals in the paraelectric phase

Temperature dependences of the dielectric permittivity of betaine phosphite crystals are studied both without and under application of an electric bias. It is shown that, in view of the fact that the high-temperature improper ferroelastic (antiferrodistorsive) phase transition at T _c1=355 K is nearly tricritical, the nonlinear temperature dependence of inverse dielectric permittivity in the paraelectric phase and the effect of the field on the dielectric permittivity can be described within a phenomenological model containing two coupled (polar and nonpolar) order parameters with a negative coupling coefficient. An analysis of the model revealed that, in the case where two phase transitions, a nonpolar and a ferroelectric one, can occur in the crystal, all of its dielectric properties, including the polarization response in a field, can be described by one dimensionless parameter a. For the crystal under study, we have a=?2.5. This value of the parameter corresponds to a second-order ferroelectric transition far from the tricritical point, at which a=?1. It is shown that the polarization response in the paraelectric phase in an electric field calculated within this model differs radically from that in the ferroelectric phase-transition model for which the Curie-Weiss law holds in the paraelectric phase.     

Effective permittivity and permeability of one-dimensional dielectric photonic crystal within a band gap

We take a finite dielectric photonic crystal as a homogeneous slab and have extracted the effective parameters. Our systematic study shows that the effective permittivity or permeability of dielectric photonic crystal is negative within a band gap region. This means that the band gap might act as ε-negative materials （ENMs） with ε 〈 0 and μ 〉 0, or μ-negative materials （MNMs） with ε 〉 0 and μ 〈 0. Moreover the effective parameters sensitively rely on size, surface termination, symmetry, etc. The effective parameters can be used to design full transmission tunnelling modes and amplify evanescent wave. Several cases are studied and the results show that dielectric photonic band gap can indeed mimic a single negative material （ENM or MNM） under some restrictions.     

Analysis of ultra-small photonic large scale integrated circuits

A detailed study of a platform of ultra-small photonic large-scale integrated circuits was conducted. Bandgap structure calculations of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) based photonic crystals have been investigated. The photonic crystal consists of dielectric cylinders in air. Using the band structure calculations we obtained design parameters for the proposed structures. The coupling between the photonic crystal and a waveguide fabricated from SOI system has been analysed. It is shown that the optical coupling is improved by interfacing different types of spot-size converters (SSCs) between the SOI waveguide and the photonic crystal. Also, the possibility and limitations of silicon doped germanium and SOI photonic crystals to analyse the light guiding in the third dimension is discussed.     

Optical defect modes at an active defect layer in photonic liquid crystals

An analytic approach to the theory of the optical defect modes in photonic liquid crystals in the case of an active defect layer is developed. The analytic study is facilitated by the choice of the problem parameters related to the dielectric properties of the studied structures. The chosen models allow eliminating polarization mixing at the external surfaces of the studied structures. The dispersion equations determining the relation of the defect mode (DM) frequency to the dielectric characteristics of an isotropic, birefringent and absorbing (amplifying) defect layer and its thickness are obtained. Analytic expressions for the transmission and reflection coefficients of the defect mode structure (DMS) (photonic liquid crystal-active defect layer-photonic liquid crystal) are presented and analyzed. The effect of anomalously strong light absorption at the defect mode frequency for an absorbing defect layer is discussed. It is shown that in a distributed feed-back lasing at the DMS with an amplifying defect layer, adjusting the lasing frequency to the DM frequency results in a significant decrease in the lasing threshold and the threshold gain decreases as the defect layer thickness increases. It is found that, generally speaking, the layer birefringence and dielectric jumps at the interfaces of the defect layer and photonic liquid crystal reduce the DM lifetime in comparison with the DMS with an isotropic defect layer without dielectric jumps at the interfaces. Correspondingly, generally speaking, the effect of anomalously strong light absorption at the defect mode frequency and the decrease in the lasing threshold are not so pronounced as in the case of the DMS with an isotropic defect layer without dielectric jumps at the interfaces. The case of a DMS with a low defect layer birefringence and sufficiently large dielectric jumps are studied in detail. The options of effectively influencing the DM parameters by changing the defect layer dielectric properties, and the birefringence in particular, are discussed.     

含超导材料Thue-Morse序列一维光子晶体传输特性研究

超导光子晶体是一类重要的带隙可调谐的光子晶体.利用传输矩阵法研究了含超导材料的Thue -Morse序列准周期结构—维光子晶体在可见光波段的传输特性.数值结果表明在正入射时,光子带隙宽度和位置基本不随序列项数的增加而改变;准周期超导光子晶体的传输特性可以通过改变传统电介质材料的结构参数和环境温度等来进行调节.     

Diffraction mechanism of specular reflection of light from photonic crystals

The spectra of specular reflection and diffraction of light for a resonant two-dimensional photonic crystal consisting of semiconductor cylinders embedded in a dielectric matrix, as well as the exciton-polariton band structure of this crystal, are studied theoretically. It is shown that specular reflection of light from a photonic crystal can be considerably enhanced by diffraction in the photonic crystal and reflection from its inner boundary with vacuum.     

基于六角结构二维光子晶体绝对带隙的优化设计研究

根据平面波展开法对二维光子晶体的能带结构进行计算，采用栅格结构连接电介质圆柱体对六角结构的二维光子晶体进行了优化. 通过计算栅格宽度和圆柱体半径对绝对带隙的影响，找到了一组可以获得大带隙二维光子晶体结构的最佳参数.优化后的光子晶体的大带隙对光子晶体制造工艺中介质圆柱体半径的偏离具有很好的稳定性，因此该结构的二维光子晶体具有很高的实用性. 关键词： 光子晶体 绝对带隙 六角结构     

Growth,structural, thermal,optical, dielectric,mechanical and laser damage threshold studies of nicotinium tartrate single crystals

An organic nonlinear optical nicotinium tartrate (NT) single crystal was grown by slow evaporation solution growth technique. The cell parameters of NT crystal were confirmed by single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction studies. The crystalline perfection of NT crystal was examined from HRXRD studies. The presence of functional groups was identified from FTIR spectral analysis. TGA and DSC studies revealed the thermal stability of NT crystal. UV–vis-NIR spectral studies showed that the NT crystal has wide transmission window in the entire visible region. The dielectric study on NT crystal established the normal dielectric behavior. The mechanical strength of NT crystal was studied by Vickers’ microhardness test. The laser damage threshold value of NT crystal was measured using Nd:YAG laser. The relative SHG efficiency of NT was measured to be 1.1 times that of KDP.     

Growth,optical and electrical studies of the nonlinear optical crystal: Glycine thiourea

Single crystals of the nonlinear optical material glycine thiourea were grown by the slow evaporation technique. The crystal structure and lattice parameters were determined for the grown crystal by the single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. Single crystal XRD revealed that the material crystallized in a monoclinic crystal system. Optical studies have been carried out and it was found that the tendency of transmission observed from the specimen with respect to the wavelength of light, is practically more suitable for opto-electronic applications. The dielectric constant, dielectric loss and ac conductivity of the compound were calculated at different temperatures and frequencies, to analyze the electrical properties. The photoconductive behavior of the material is also investigated and the results are discussed.     

The lattice dynamics of an anharmonic crystal

The theory of the physical properties of an anharmonic crystal is discussed by using the thermodynamic Green's functions for the phonons. A perturbation procedure is developed to obtain the Green's functions and it is shown that for some purposes a quasi-harmonic approximation is useful, in which the frequencies of the normal modes are those determined by infra-red or neutron spectrometry. The thermodynamic, elastic, dielectric and scattering properties of an anharmonic crystal are discussed in terms of the Green's functions, and detailed expressions are given for the more important contributions. Detailed numerical calculations are presented of the thermal expansion, dielectric properties and shapes of some of the inelastically scattered neutron groups, for sodium iodide and potassium bromide. The calculations, which give reasonable agreement with experiment, show that even at quite low temperatures, the lifetimes of some of the normal modes can be quite short. By using the quasi-harmonic approximation it is shown that the large temperature dependence of the normal modes in a ferroelectric crystal can be treated adequately.