Scattering-based hole burning through volume speckles in a random medium with tunable diffusion constant

A photoreactive random medium with tunable diffusion constant D is fabricated by infiltrating Sm2+-doped macroporous aluminosilicate glass with liquid crystal (LC). Time-resolved transmission experiment reveals that D in the LC-infiltrated sample changes abruptly at around 35 °C due to the phase transition of LC between nematic and isotropic. The hole burning effect based on the interference of multiply scattered light is investigated with a particular motivation of controlling hole burning properties externally via temperature. We demonstrate that the holes are separately registered in each LC phase and can be detected selectively depending on the temperature.