Light-induced orientation transition in nematic liquid crystalline polymer

Optical orientation in transparent nematic liquid crystalline polymer (NLCP) was observed for the first time. In NLCP with dye dopant, the light-induced second-order orientation transition being an analogue of the Freedericksz transition in low-frequency fields is found. The transition threshold is ~10 μW which is lower than the threshold of the light-induced Freedericksz transition in low-molecular nematics by four orders ofmagnitude and is lower than the characteristic value for low-molecular nematics with dye dopant by two orders of magnitude.