Improved Photorefractive Response in Liquid Crystals with Ferroelectric Nanoparticles

Liquid crystals in hybrid configurations with inorganic materials offer improved optical response. One such example is the suspension of ferroelectric, inorganic nanoparticles in liquid crystals. Nanoparticles of photorefractive crystal Sn2P2S6 were successfully mixed with low birefringence liquid crystal (LC 18523). The resulting cells showed good quality of alignment and low levels of light scattering. The effect of nanoparticles proved to be quite significant with more than three-fold increase in dielectric anisotropy as well as significant improvement in two-beam coupling gain.