Optical phase grating diffraction in a quasistatic electric field biased nematic liquid crystal film

Abstract

It is known that an optical phase grating can be obtained when two mutually coherent laser beams overlap in a nematic liquid crystal. This is mainly due to director reorientation which contributes to a large optical non-linearity. It has been suggested by Herman and Serinko that a phase grating could be obtained in nematic liquid crystals if a D.C. field is used to bias it near the critical orientational Freedericksz transition. A homeotropic MBBA film biased by an electric field at 1 kHz has been studied. Two weak Ar⁺ laser beams were incident normally to the film with a small intersection angle (?0·4?). Using the picture of a director reorientation mechanism and a degenerate four wave mixing scheme, we have obtained the dependence of the diffraction beam intensity on that of the incident beam and the strength of the biased electric field. The theoretical prediction and experimental results both show that the phase grating diffraction can be dramatically enhanced by the coupling of the electric field to the optical field in the Freedericksz transition region. This is due to the critical behaviour of the sample at that transition. The prominently improved signal-to-noise ratio is discussed.