Search

Research was conducted to describe an approach for obtaining a large second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility in a chiral liquid crystal. The approach utilized an aligned smectic-C liquid crystal as a template for producing molecular crystals that freezes out the rotation of the molecular dipoles while enhancing the noncentrosymmetric order of the structure. The order of magnitude for saturated noncentrosymmetric ordering of the molecular dipoles was determined by extrapolating known values and the dipole orientational order parameter of the smectic-C.

The dependence of the acousto-optic response of two nematic liquid crystals on several possible future device parameters is investigated. Several paths for possible optimization are identified. A large enhancement of the acousto-optic response is obtained through optimization of the incident angle of the acoustic wave. The power required for a given cell to reach the maximum optical intensity is also reduced by adjusting the optical angle. This reduction comes at the expense of higher zero-field intensity, and therefore lowers the overall contrast. Finally, the acousto-optic response shows a significant dependence on liquid crystal layer thickness, scaling with the theoretically predicted fifth power of the cell thickness. © 2003 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which investigated the ferromagnetic properties of a type of magnetic composite, permalloy-coated submicron diameter hollow cylinders or tubules. Dispersion of the permalloy-coated tubules in an epoxy matrix; Magnetization and ferromagnetic resonance properties of individual tubules; Nature of the magnetic anisotropy of the tubules.