Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 10, 2025

An Electrochemical Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Device for Quick and Low-Voltage Color Modulation
Published on: February 27, 2019
Chirality-Enhanced Periodic Self-Focusing of Light in Soft Birefringent Media
Guilhem Poy1, Andrew J Hess2, Ivan I Smalyukh2,3,4
1Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Abstract:
We experimentally and numerically show that chirality can play a major role in the nonlinear optical response of soft birefringent materials, by studying the nonlinear propagation of laser beams in frustrated cholesteric liquid crystal samples. Such beams exhibit a periodic nonlinear response associated with a bouncing pattern for the optical fields, as well as a self-focusing effect enhanced by the chirality of the birefringent material. Our results open new possible designs of nonlinear optical devices with low power consumption and tunable interactions with localized topological solitons.
More Related Videos
09:38Fabrication Procedures and Birefringence Measurements for Designing Magnetically Responsive Lanthanide Ion Chelating Phospholipid Assemblies
Published on: January 3, 2018
09:43Interfacial Molecular-level Structures of Polymers and Biomacromolecules Revealed via Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy
Published on: August 13, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Chirality in Nature
Chirality
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers
Prochirality