Paper
29 June 2001 Optical nonlinearities in fatty acids
Mihaela A. Ghelmez, Maria Honciuc, Elena Slavnicu
Author Affiliations +
Proceedings Volume 4430, ROMOPTO 2000: Sixth Conference on Optics; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.432881
Event: ROMOPTO 2000: Sixth Conference on Optics, 2000, Bucharest, Romania
Abstract
A variety of self-organized patterns were observed in liquid crystal modulators, generated because of their large and controllable nonlinearity. In this work, we investigated some fatty acids and mixtures with cholesterol, which showed, under certain conditions, thermotropic mesomorphism and a large sensitivity to the optical field. Depending on the transverse profile of the laser beam, a self-phase modulation and external self-focusing - illustrating the nonlinear wave propagation - were observed. A ring pattern, due to the steady-state far-field diffraction intensity distribution of the Gaussian beam of a helium-neon laser, transmitted through the samples, was experimentally and computer studied. This is useful both for building new photonic devices and for explaining some processes from the biological membrane.
© (2001) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Mihaela A. Ghelmez, Maria Honciuc, and Elena Slavnicu "Optical nonlinearities in fatty acids", Proc. SPIE 4430, ROMOPTO 2000: Sixth Conference on Optics, (29 June 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.432881
Advertisement
Advertisement
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission  Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace
KEYWORDS
Liquid crystals

Nonlinear optics

Modulation

Helium neon lasers

Microscopes

Wave propagation

Far-field diffraction

Back to Top