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Abstract
The liquid crystal response to instantaneous strong laser pulses is related to its electronic, orientational, as well as thermal nonlinear optical properties. In this work, the transients of the refractive index variation in a pentyl-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) liquid crystal doped with an anthraquinone dye are studied with nanosecond laser pulse excitation at 532 nm. The magnitude of the response and its sign are studied as functions of the dye concentration and the ac electric field applied to a planarly or homeotropically aligned liquid crystal cell.
Acknowledgments
We thank V. Nazarenko for helpful discussions and R. Vasyuta for the samples preparation. This work was supported in part by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science within the Polish-Ukrainian Co-operation Grant and VC88-334-22 NASU grant. A.M. wishes to thank the Polish Ministry of Education and Science for the financial support under grant N507 132 31/3302.