Liquid crystal inorganic hybrid photorefractives

We report on the photorefractive properties of liquid crystals sandwiched between windows of cerium doped strontium barium niobate (Ce:SBN). This adaptable design has been used to create devices using pure nematic liquid crystals, ferroelectric nanoparticle doped liquid crystals, and cholesteric liquid crystals. In all these systems, modulation of the liquid crystal molecules is driven by the surface space-charge field from the inorganic windows. Owing to the large effective trap density in the Ce:SBN, high resolution gratings with two-beam coupling gain coefficients of up to 1400 cm
^-1
have been achieved in the Bragg regime.