Electric field control of diffraction and noise in dye-doped liquid crystals

We present results on permanent gratings in highly dye-doped liquid crystal cells without polymer coatings of the cells' surfaces. The surface-mediated gratings remain in cells for months without degradation of their quality. The peak diffraction efficiency can be controlled, enhanced or decreased, by applying low voltage AC field. At low frequencies, below 1 Hz, the diffracted signal can modulated by the AC field, but the time development of the signal shows a complex response. The enhancement of diffraction can be, however, observed at all frequencies we tested (0.1 Hz – 300 kHz). The permanent gratings cannot be removed by heating above the liquid crystal phase transition temperature as on cooling the diffraction efficiency is restored

Optically bound microscopic particles in one dimension

Counter-propagating light fields have the ability to create self-organized one-dimensional optically bound arrays of microscopic particles, where the light fields adapt to the particle locations and vice versa. We develop a theoretical model to describe this situation and show good agreement with recent experimental data (Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 128301 (2002)) for two and three particles, if the scattering force is assumed to dominate the axial trapping of the particles. The extension of these ideas to two and three dimensional optically bound states is also discussed.Comment: 12 pages, incl. 5 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.

Bidirectional photorefractive ring resonator pumped by a single beam

Bidirectional oscillations can be supported in a single photorefractive ring resonator using Ce:BaTiO3. We show that two oscillation beams can simultaneously propagate in opposite directions under different geometries. The difference in power between the two oscillation beams can reach two orders of magnitude and their stability depends on the pump beam angle of incidence and the crystal's configuration

Colloidal interactions and transport in nematic liquid crystals

We describe a new nematic liquid-crystal colloid system which is characterized by both charge stabilization of the particles and an interaction force. We estimate the effective charge of the particles by electrophoretic measurements and find that in such systems the director anchoring energy W is very low and the particles have little director distortion around them. The interaction force is created by producing a radial distribution of the nematic order parameter around a locally isotropic region created by ir laser heating. We theoretically describe this as being due to the induced flexoelectric polarization, the quadrupolar symmetry of which provides the required long-range force acting on charged particles

Anisotropic Brownian motion in ordered phases of DNA fragments

Using Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching, we investigate the Brownian motion of DNA rod-like fragments in two distinct anisotropic phases with a local nematic symmetry. The height of the measurement volume ensures the averaging of the anisotropy of the in-plane diffusive motion parallel or perpendicular to the local nematic director in aligned domains. Still, as shown in using a model specifically designed to handle such a situation and predicting a non-Gaussian shape for the bleached spot as fluorescence recovery proceeds, the two distinct diffusion coefficients of the DNA particles can be retrieved from data analysis. In the first system investigated (a ternary DNA-lipid lamellar complex), the magnitude and anisotropy of the diffusion coefficient of the DNA fragments confined by the lipid bilayers are obtained for the first time. In the second, binary DNA-solvent system, the magnitude of the diffusion coefficient is found to decrease markedly as DNA concentration is increased from isotropic to cholesteric phase. In addition, the diffusion coefficient anisotropy measured within cholesteric domains in the phase coexistence region increases with concentration, and eventually reaches a high value in the cholesteric phase