Abstract

In response to 6-10-ns laser irradiation of nonabsorbing planar nematic liquid-crystal (LC) layers, unusual ~ several second build-up time, far-field, elliptical diffraction ring pattern in a 532-nm, linearly polarized, Gaussian beam, self-organizes through stages of chaotic scattering and interference at 2-10-Hz pulse-repetition rate (Fig. 1) This pattern is observed under experimental conditions excluding ordinary orientational spatial self-phase modulation, for a geometry in which incident light polarization is parallel to the director of LC molecules.

© 2000 IEEE