ABSTRACT
In this paper, CuPc-film-containing nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cells were fabricated, and dynamic holographic gratings recorded in the NLC cells were studied. The dependence of the diffraction efficiency on the applied voltage, light intensity, and the thicknesses of CuPc and NLC film was investigated. The high diffraction efficiency about 30% and the moderate build-up and erasing time in the order of magnitude of 0.1 s were achieved. The asymmetric energy transferring in two-beam coupling indicates photorefractive (PR) nature of the grating. The results of the photoinduced change of birefringence experiments suggest that the surface charge at the interface between the CuPc film and the NLC film plays a crucial role in the PR effect and the CuPc–NLC interface is mainly responsible for the formation of modulated surface charge layer and enables the photoelectric function of the NLC device. Our research may provide a new material option to optimise and develop NLC device for optical information processing and storage.
Graphical Abstract
![](/cms/asset/66432875-f240-47f8-87d7-88374e957c62/tlct_a_1556820_uf0001_oc.jpg)
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by Program for Innovation Research of Science in Harbin Institute of Technology [PIRS of HIT A201421 and PIRS of HIT A201420], Postdoctoral Startup Foundation of Heilongjiang Province [LBH-Q15061] and National Natural Science Foundation of China [61107044].
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplementary data can be accessed here