Abstract
Liquid crystals in their various ordered and disordered phases have been shown to possess large optical nonlinearities over wide temporal (cw to picosecond) and spectral (visible to infrared) ranges.1 In this paper, we describe two optical-limiting-device concepts that use the sizable optical nonlinearities1 of isotropic liquid crystals doped with lightly absorbing dyes or with Fullerene C60. The dopants are chosen in order to exploit both the nonlinear scattering and the defocusing mechanism in dyed doped liquid crystal and the nonlinear absorption characteristics of Fullerene C60.2 Both device concepts utilize an extended region of nonlinear interaction between the incident laser and the nonlinear material that is created largely by the optical propagation through such geometries.
© 1995 Optical Society of America
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