High- And Low-Molar-Mass Liquid Crystal Mixtures for Photorefractive Applications

We describe a highly efficient photorefractive material possessing high-molar-mass liquid crystal (H-LC), low-molar-mass liquid crystal (L-LC), and photoconductive agent. These photorefractive high- and low-molar-mass liquid crystal mixtures (HL-LCMs) show high-performance in a thick grating regime (Bragg regime) under low dc electric fields (< 1 V/μm). The photorefractive properties are strongly dependent on the concentration of the H-LC. The fastest response time of 70 ms is achieved with a gain coefficient of 213 cm-1 in the case of 10 wt% of the H-LC with 0.18 V/μm. The largest gain coefficient of over 600 cm-1 is achieved with the response time of 2.6 s in the case of 40 wt% of the H-LC with 0.7 V/μm. In addition, our future directions in this research area are also presented.