Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of Intrinsic Optical Transistor Action in Homeotropically Aligned Nematic Crystal Films

Abstract

In this work we report the first observation of intrinsic optical transistor action in a homeotropically aligned nematic liquid crystal film. The transistor action is produced by the sample intrinsic optical nonlinearities, so that no external feed-back mechanism (e.g. a Fabry-Perot resonator) is necessary. We also present a theoretical analysis of the problem in two different approximations: a linear, time-dependent approach, and a stationary non linear analysis. The theoretical results show to be in good agreement with our measurements.