High resolution polarization gratings in liquid crystals

S. Slussarenko, O. Francescangeli, F. Simoni, and Y. Reznikov

Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 71, 3613 (1997); doi: 10.1063/1.120457

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High resolution polarization gratings in liquid crystals
S. Slussarenko, O. Francescangeli,a) and F. Simoni
Dipartimento di Scienze dei Materiali e della Terra and Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia,
Università di Ancona, Via Brecce Bianche, I-60131 Ancona, Italy
Y. Reznikov
Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Prospect Nauki 46, Kyiv, Ukraine
~Received 14 August 1997; accepted for publication 22 October 1997!
Efficient recording of polarization gratings in dye-doped liquid crystals is reported. By exploiting
the effect of light-induced anchoring of the molecular director, it has been possible to write stable
holographic gratings with a diffraction efficiency of 8% at a resolution of 1000 lines/mm. The
required surface energy density of 0.3 J/cm2 sets these materials among the most sensitive for
optical storage. © 1997 American Institute of Physics. @S0003-6951~97!03751-0#

The investigation of media for optical processing and ration, rotation of the director towards the light polarization
storage has attracted extensive scientific and industrial inter- direction occurs in the illuminated surface areas correspond-
est during the last years. Generally, high sensitivity ~i.e., low ing to the maxima of the interference pattern created by two
writing intensity! and high storage density are the main goals beams with parallel polarization. On the contrary, the direc-
to be achieved. However, most of the times the recorded tor orientation is not modified in the areas corresponding to
pattern does not contain information on the polarization state the interference minima. A volume phase grating is then ob-
of the writing beam. Polarization holography can solve the tained since the twisted structures created in the illuminated
problem, but it is generally difficult to find materials sensi- areas produce an optical path which is different from the one
tive to the polarization state of the interfering beams. Several produced by the nonilluminated areas corresponding to the
materials have been investigated for this purpose in the re- planar homogeneous alignment.
cent past: photorefractive crystals,1 polymeric liquid In order to exploit the same basic phenomenon ~i.e., the
crystals,2 and liquid crystals.3 In the latter case, the effect has dye molecules adsorption on the control surface! for record-
been observed only in a particular compound and in the case ing a polarization grating, we have performed similar experi-
of dynamic gratings. ments by using two orthogonally polarized light beams. The
In this letter, we report the observation of high resolution experiments were carried out using a sandwich glass cell, 10
and high sensitivity stable polarization gratings in nematic mm thick, filled with a mixture of nematic liquid crystal K15
liquid crystals doped with azo-dyes. These gratings could be ~5CB! and azo-dye methyl red ~MR! as a dopant at a weight
observed after removal of the writing beams and the dif- concentration of about 1%. The inner surface of the first
fracted efficiency did not show any reduction after more than glass ~control surface! was coated by an isotropic nonrubbed
six months. layer of poly~vinyl!-cinnamate-fluoride ~PVCN-F!, while the
Recently, we have reported an efficient method for writ- inner surface of the second glass ~reference surface! was
ing permanent intensity holographic gratings4 in azo-dye coated with a polyimide layer and rubbed to get strong pla-
doped nematic liquid crystals by exploiting the effect of nar anchoring. The latter surface determined the initial planar
light-induced molecular anchoring. Here, light absorption alignment of the cell.
into the liquid crystal bulk doped by a small quantity of azo The experimental setup has been described elsewhere.4
dye, leads to a reorientation of the molecular director on the A Mach–Zender geometry was used in the sample to pro-
control surface ~i.e., an isotropic polymer coated surface! duce the interference pattern of two beams originated from
towards the polarization direction of the exciting light beam. He–Cd laser (l50.442 m m) and crossing each other at a
After suitable illumination, light-induced anchoring is strong small angle u. The polarizations of the two beams were con-
enough to give rise to a stable surface reorientation of the trolled by half-wave plates in order to get orthogonal polar-
director. Preliminary investigations suggest4,5 that this effect izations. The total light power on the sample was 0.6 mW
is due to adsorption over the control surface of the excited with a spot size diameter of 2 mm. Strong diffraction could
dye molecules which, in the process, align the liquid crystal be observed after about 15 s of illumination, corresponding
molecules and reorient the director. In this case, the origin of to a surface energy density of 0.3 J/cm2.
the grating is the light-induced modulation of the molecular As it is well known, in the case of orthogonal polariza-
director orientation, which occurs when the direction of the tion of the interferring beams, the spatial distribution of the
impinging light polarization is different from the initial pla- light field leads to a uniform intensity distribution while the
nar orientation of the sample. This effect is related to the resulting polarization varies from linear to elliptical, to cir-
appearance of a light-induced easy axis over the isotropic cular and so on, depending on the phase delay between the
surface and the consequent increase of the anchoring energy two waves. In fact, if we consider the superposition of two
with increasing exposure time.5 In this experimental configu- orthogonally polarized beams propagating at angles 6 u /2
with respect to the z axis ~Fig. 1!, the total light field can be
a!
Electronic mail: [email protected] written as2

Appl. Phys. Lett. 71 (25), 22 December 1997 0003-6951/97/71(25)/3613/3/$10.00 © 1997 American Institute of Physics 3613
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FIG. 1. Superposition of two beams with orthogonal polarizations. The two
wavefields propagate along two different directions at angles 6 u /2 with FIG. 2. Intensity I of the first diffracted beam vs exposure time t. The
respect to the z axis. The field E1 is parallel to the x axis; the field E2 lies in continuous line represents experimental data. The dashed line is the best fit
the plane yz. In our experimental configuration, the control surface coin- to the experimental data by using the exponential law I(t)512exp@2(t
cides with the plane xy. 2t0)/t#; the fit parameters are t 0 55.5 s and t 59.0 s.

E5 @ E 1 e i f ux 1E 2 cos~ u /2! e 2i f uy grating structure is formed in the liquid crystal volume by

twisted director orientation where the aligning direction on
1E 2 sin~ u /2!# e 2i f uz ]e i ~ kz cos~ u /2! 2 v t ! ~1! one surface varies with continuity.
The occurrence of grating formation was measured by a
with
probe beam from a He–Ne laser and was also checked by
2p observing the samples under polarized optical microscope.
f5 y sin~ u /2! ~2! The rise of the grating structure is clear from Fig. 2
l
where the intensity of the first diffracted beam is reported
being u the crossing angle between the interfering beams, k versus the illumination time. One can observe that with a
the modulus of the wavevector (k52 p /l), and uz the total impinging power of 0.6 mW, complete saturation of the
propagation direction of the total wavefield. The intensity signal is reached after 1 min, while 50% of the maximum
(I}E•E* ) is thus uniform and independent of the phase f: diffraction is achieved after 10 s. The rise of the diffracted
signal I(t) ~normalized to its maximum intensity! can be
I5I 1 1I 2 . ~3! satisfactorily fitted by the exponential law
I ~ t ! 512exp@ 2 ~ t2t 0 ! / t # ~4!
Neglecting in Eq. ~1! the component of the field in the z
direction ~due to the smallness of u!, we can easily see that with t.t 0 , where t 0 is the dead time before the anchoring
the state of polarization of the total light field becomes a becomes effective and t is the time constant of the process.
periodic function of f. So a polarization grating periodic in The best fit is obtained with t 0 55.5 s and t 59.0 s and is
p is obtained, in contrast to an intensity grating periodic in p shown by the dashed line in Fig. 2.
obtained in the case of parallel polarization.4 The state of The observation under optical microscope of such a grat-
polarization varies periodically as a function of f and hence ing is reported in Fig. 3.
of y, being linear for f 56n p /2 (n50,1,2,...), circular ~if The quality of the holographic grating was estimated by
E 1 5E 2 ! for f 56(2n11) p /4, and elliptical otherwise. The measuring the diffraction efficiency defined as6 h 5I 1 /I 0 ,
origin of the grating which is generated in this case is essen- where I 0 is the intensity of the impinging probe beam and I 1
tially different from the intensity grating previously the intensity of the first order diffracted beam. The behavior
reported.4 For the intensity hologram ~i.e., for parallel polar-
ization!, in fact, the surface director reorientation pattern re-
sults from the periodic modulation of the anchoring energy
associated to the easy axis. The orientation of this latter is
fixed by the linear incident polarization and remains constant
throughout the whole illuminated area. Differently, in the
present case, the light-induced anchoring energy is spatially
uniform because of the uniform intensity distribution over
the illuminated surface. On the other hand, the induced easy
axis is now modulated since it depends on the light polariza-
tion at the control surface. In particular, the direction of the
induced easy axis varies in agreement with the modulation of
the long axis of the polarization ellipse. As a consequence,
we expect a definite surface orientation corresponding to the
linear polarization and some broadening of the easy axis ori- FIG. 3. Optical microscopy photo of one of the recorded gratings. The
entation in the case of elliptical polarization. In this way, a grating constant is L51 m m.

3614 Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 71, No. 25, 22 December 1997 Slussarenko et al.
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 ization gratings can be ascribed to the absence of domains of
zero anchoring energy over the illuminated area, due to the
uniformity of the intensity distribution.
In order to compare the storage capabilities of different
materials, the following parameter g can be used:7
g5 ~ h ! 1/2E, ~5!
where E is the surface energy density corresponding to the
diffraction efficiency h. In our case, g can easily reach a
value greater than 1 cm2/J, which is among the highest ever
obtained in nonlinear materials. In fact, a similar value can
be obtained only in azo-polymers, while in photorefractive
materials and liquid crystal glasses the value of g ranges
between 0.2 and 0.5 cm2/J8–10 and in liquid-crystalline silox-
FIG. 4. Diffraction efficiency h vs grating constant L. Full dots refer to the
polarization grating; hollow squares refer to the intensity grating ~Ref. 4!. anes it ranges between 0.001 and 0.1 cm2/J. 7
The solid line ~upper curve! and the dashed line ~lower curve! are interpo- In conclusion, we have demonstrated the possibility of
lations to the experimental data. writing stable polarization gratings in liquid crystals, with
high spatial resolution (.1000 lines/mm) and high surface
of this parameter as a function of the crossing angle u gives sensitivity ~writing surface energy density as low as
important information on the maximum achievable spatial 0.3 J/cm2!.
frequency. The results of such measurement is reported in
Fig. 4 ~solid line!, where the diffraction efficiency is plotted 1
B. I. Sturman, M. Yu. Goul’kov, and S. G. Odoulov, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B
against the grating constant. It can be observed that the maxi- 13, 577 ~1996!.
mum efficiency of about 12% is attained at L'20 m m, but
2
K. Anderle and J. H. Wendorff, Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst. 243, 51 ~1994!.
3
I. C. Khoo, Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst. 207, 317 ~1991!.
an efficiency of 8% is still present at L51 m m, which cor- 4
F. Simoni, O. Francescangeli, Y. Reznikov, and S. Slussarenko, Opt. Lett.
responds to 1000 lines/mm. 22, 549 ~1997!.
5
Comparing these results with those found for the inten- D. Voloshchenko, A. Khyzhnyak, Y. Reznikov, and V. Reshetnyak, Jpn.
J. Appl. Phys., Part 1 34, 566 ~1995!.
sity grating4 ~dashed line in Fig. 4!, we observe that much 6
F. Simoni, Nonlinear Optical Properties of Liquid Crystals and Polymer
higher efficiencies are obtained throughout the whole acces- Dispersed Liquid Crystals ~World Scientific, Singapore, 1997!.
sible range of grating constants. In addition, polarization ho- 7
R. Ortler, C. Bräuchle, A. Miller, and G. Riepl, Makromol. Chem. Rapid
lography allows to extend the maximum achievable spatial Commun. 10, 189 ~1989!.
8
G. Pauliat and G. Roosen, Int. J. Opt. Comput. 2, 271 ~1991!.
resolution ~with appreciable efficiency! up to thousands of 9
S. Ducharme, J. C. Scott, R. J. Twieg, and W. E. Moerner, Phys. Rev.
lines/mm where the efficiency of the intensity grating is neg- Lett. 66, 1846 ~1991!.
ligibly small. The higher efficiency obtained with the polar- 10
M. Eich and J. H. Wendorff, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 7, 1428 ~1990!.

Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 71, No. 25, 22 December 1997 Slussarenko et al. 3615
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