Crucial effects of the anisotropy on optical field induced pattern formation in nematic liquid crystal films

Abstract

We present here the crucial effects of material anisotropy on optical field induced pattern formation in the one-feedback-mirror arrangement which utilizes the nematic liquid crystal film as the nonlinear medium. By using the quasi-static electric-field-biased planar-aligned homogeneous nematic liquid crystal (NLC) films, we observe both the hexagon and the roll patterns which can be switched optically due to the intrinsic anisotropic distribution of the threshold intensity. The anisotropy comes from the anisotropic nonlinear response of the NLC film and is the crucial factor for such a one-feedback-mirror system to form both the roll and hexagon patterns. The observed phenomena can be explained from the linear stability analysis of the governing diffusion-like equation. The experimental results indicate that the stable roll patterns are formed at low input light power and the stable hexagon patterns formed at high input power. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.