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Orientational Kerr effect and phase modulation of light in deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals with subwavelength pitch

Evgeny P. Pozhidaev1,2,*, Alexei D. Kiselev2,3,†, Abhishek Kumar Srivastava2,‡, Vladimir G. Chigrinov2,§, Hoi-Sing Kwok2,∥, and Maxim V. Minchenko1

  • 1P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prospect 53, 119991 Moscow, Russia
  • 2Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong
  • 3Institute of Physics of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, prospekt Nauki 46, 03028 Kyïv, Ukraine

  • *epozhidaev@mail.ru
  • †kiselev@iop.kiev.ua
  • ‡abhishek_srivastava_lu@yahoo.co.in
  • §eechigr@ust.hk
  • ∥eekwok@ust.hk
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Phys. Rev. E 87, 052502 – Published 16 May, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.87.052502

Abstract

We study both theoretically and experimentally the electro-optical properties of vertically aligned deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystals (VADHFLC) with subwavelength pitch that are governed by the electrically induced optical biaxiality of the smectic helical structure. The key theoretical result is that the principal refractive indices of homogenized VADHFLC cells exhibit the quadratic nonlinearity and such behavior might be interpreted as an orientational Kerr effect caused by the electric-field-induced orientational distortions of the FLC helix. In our experiments, it has been observed that, for sufficiently weak electric fields, the magnitude of biaxiality is proportional to the square of electric field in good agreement with our theoretical results for the effective dielectric tensor of VADHFLCs. Under certain conditions, the 2π phase modulation of light, which is caused by one of the induced refractive indices, is observed without changes in ellipticity of incident light.

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Phys. Rev. E 87, 052502– Published 16 May, 2013
  • Received 29 March 2013

©2013 American Physical Society

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