文章基本信息

标题：Origin of optical nonlinearity of photo-responsive liquid crystals revealed by transient grating imaging
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作者：Kenji Katayama ; Daiki Kato ; Kin-Ichiro Nagasaka 等
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2019
卷号：9
期号：1
页码：1-9
DOI：10.1038/s41598-019-42140-x
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：A large optical nonlinearity has been observed for the photo-responsive liquid crystals under the condition that the nematic phase is close to the isotropic condition. The direct observation of the photo-response of a liquid crystal by the time-resolved transient grating phase imaging technique revealed that the optical nonlinearity was caused by the transiently generated phase formed inside the photo-induced isotropic region. A shock-like flow was observed for the formation of the transiently generated phase. Based on the theoretical calculation, we propose that a flow generated at the disordered/ordered interface induced the reorientation of the liquid crystal molecules, thereby generating a larger polarization and ultimately causing the optical nonlinearity.