[20p-PA2-1~35] 12.3 Functional Materials and Novel Devices

[20p-PA2-19] Photoinduced Molecular Reorientation and Optical Limiting Behavior of Polymer-Stabilized Dye-Doped Liquid Crystals with an Electric Field Application

〇Koji Usui¹, Norihisa Akamatsu¹, Atsushi Shishido¹ (1.Lab. for Chem. & Life Sci., Tokyo Tech.)

Keywords:Liquid crystal, Nonlinear optical effect, Optical limiting

Liquid crystals (LCs) are high-performance optical materials since they enable to change their refractive index via cooperative molecular orientational change by an external field application. In LCs doped with a small amount of dye molecules, the efficiency of the photoinduced orientational change increases, therefore we can easily control light transmittance. However, high threshold intensity remains a challenge for optical applications. Recently, we found that the polymer-stabilized LCs doped with an oligothiophene dye allows the great reduction of a threshold intensity. In this study, we further reduced the threshold intensity by applying an electric field along the direction of molecular reorientation to assist its orientational change. Moreover, we investigated the optical limiting behavior arising from nonlinear molecular reorientation.