Light amplification by photorefractive ferroelectric liquid crystal blends containing quarter-thiophene photoconductive chiral dopant

The photorefractive effect is a phenomenon that forms a rewritable hologram in a material. This phenomenon can be utilized in devices including 3D displays, optical tomography, novelty filters, phase conjugate wave generators, and optical amplification. Ferroelectric liquid crystal blends composed of a smectic liquid crystalline mixture, a photoconductive chiral dopant, and an electron trap reagent exhibit significant photorefractivity together with rapid responses. As such, they allow the dynamic amplification of moving optical signals. The photoconductive chiral dopants used in the previous study are ter-thiphene derivatives so that the photorefractive effect was examined at 488 nm. In the present work, chiral dopants possessing quarter-thiphene chromophore were synthesized and the photorefractive effect of the FLC blends at longer wavelength was demonstrated.