Theoretical study of reorientation and torque of liquid crystal molecules under influence of external electric field and experimentally generation of spatial optical soliton beam and getting a sharp switching in chiral nematic liquid crystal

Abstract

Liquid crystals (LC) are anisotropic materials which experience a torque if an electric field is present. This field can be due to an external voltage or to the presence of a light beam. Reorientation due to light leads to non-linear behavior in the optical behavior. Due to this kind of nonlinearity therefore it is possible to generate optical spatial soliton beam in LC by bias voltage or without it and interestingly chiral nematic liquid crystals has a opportunity to generate spatial optical solitons without the need for a bias voltage. In this paper we also demonstrate that a sharp switching of the helix structure occurs when the spatial soliton is launched in the middle of two regions where soliton generation is favorable. Due to the optical nonlinearity, the helical structure becomes asymmetric and a sharp switching in one direction can be obtained. Moreover, in this paper, the torque and reorientation of the liquid crystal and the change in angular momentum of the light are discussed.