Measurement of nonlinear refraction of dyes doped liquid crystal using moiré deflectometry

Recently the nonlinear effects of the azo-dye doped liquid crystals have attracted much interest. In this paper the nonlinear refractive indices, n₂, of two dyes (Sudan Black B, Sudan III) doped nematic liquid crystal were measured at low laser powers using moiré deflectometry technique. The results show when a nonlinear sample is placed in moiré deflectometry setup, the moiré fringe patterns will rotate around the beam center because of self-focusing effect in the sample. By measuring this rotation, the magnitude and the sign of nonlinear refractive index were calculated. The n₂ values for Sudan black B is larger than Sudan III, because of some differences in molecular structure and molecular polarization.