Nonlinear optical refraction of the dye-doped E7 thermotropic liquid crystal at the nematic-isotropic phase transition

TL;DR

This study investigates how dye doping affects the nonlinear optical refraction of E7 liquid crystal near the nematic-isotropic transition, revealing increased nonlinearity and critical behavior consistent with a tricritical phase transition.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of nonlinear optical refraction in dye-doped E7 liquid crystal and links the critical behavior to the phase transition nature.

Findings

Nonlinear refraction increases with dye doping.

Divergence of nonlinear refraction at the clearing point.

Critical exponent supports tricritical phase transition hypothesis.

Abstract

It is known that the doping of liquid crystal with dyes usually changes the physical properties of the host, like the transition temperatures and the optical absorption among others. In this work we report a study of the nonlinear optical refraction of a dye doped sample of the E7 thermotropic liquid crystal by the Z-scan technique. It was found that the nonlinear refraction of the sample is higher than the undoped one, diverging at the clearing point. Close to the N-I transition, the nonlinear birefringence is characterized by a critical exponent that seams to confirm the tricritical hypothesis of the nature of the N-I phase transition, being independent of the doping.