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Abstract
The photorefractive effect in ferroelectric liquid crystalline mixtures containing photoconductive chiral compounds was investigated. Ter-thiophene compounds with chiral structures were chosen as the photoconductive chiral compounds, and they were mixed with an achiral smectic C liquid crystal. The mixtures exhibit the ferroelectric chiral smectic C phase. The photorefractivity of the mixtures was investigated by two-beam coupling experiments. It was found that the ferroelectric liquid crystals containing the photoconductive chiral compound exhibit a large gain coefficient of over 1200 cm−1 and a fast response time of 1 ms. Real-time dynamic amplification of an optical image signal of over 30 fps using the photorefractive ferroelectric liquid crystal was demonstrated.