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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Novel Techniques for Observing Structural Dynamics of Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 29, 2018
Spatiotemporal pulses in a liquid crystal optical oscillator
U Bortolozzo1, A Montina, F T Arecchi
1Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l'ENS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 5, France.
Abstract:
A nonlinear optical medium results by the collective orientation of liquid crystal molecules tightly coupled to a transparent photoconductive layer. We show that such a medium can give a large gain; thus, if inserted in a ring cavity, it results in an unidirectional optical oscillator. We report new dynamical regimes characterized by the generation of spatiotemporal pulses, localized in three dimensions and arising from the random superposition of many longitudinal and transverse modes with different frequencies.
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