Abstract

Thermal switching effects in liquid crystals are of particular interest because of the large value of their temperature coefficient of refractive index (∂n/∂T). The well-documented purely thermal effect is the primary optical nonlinearity, but we report an additional reorientational effect which can be initiated at milliwatt incident powers from a He-Ne laser to produce a secondary optically bistable switching effect.

© 1986 Optical Society of America