Self-starting laser oscillator with a nonlinear nematic liquid-crystal mirror

Abstract

A novel laser oscillator with a cavity completed by the refractive-index grating induced by generating beams in a nematic liquid-crystal cell is studied experimentally and theoretically. It is shown that both the thermal and orientational nonlinearity of the liquid crystal can provide the holographic mirror formation and the self-starting condition in the laser oscillator. The self-starting laser with a nonlinear mirror demonstrates a single-longitudinal-mode generation with good beam quality.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

Formation of dynamic cavity in a self-starting high-average-power Nd:YAG laser oscillator

Oleg L. Antipov, Alexander S. Kuzhelev, and Dmitry V. Chausov
Opt. Express 5(12) 286-291 (1999)

Phase-conjugate reflection and self-starting optical phase-conjugate oscillation in planar nematic liquid-crystal cells

Yuhren Shen, Hsu-Kuan Hsu, and Shu-Hsia Chen
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20(1) 65-72 (2003)

Observation of self-diffraction by gratings in nematic liquid crystals doped with carbon nanotubes

Wei Lee and Chi-Shen Chiu
Opt. Lett. 26(8) 521-523 (2001)

Incoherent spatial solitary waves in nematic liquid crystals

Marco Peccianti and Gaetano Assanto
Opt. Lett. 26(22) 1791-1793 (2001)

Measurement of the self-induced waveguide of a solitonlike optical beam in a nematic liquid crystal

Xavier Hutsebaut, Cyril Cambournac, Marc Haelterman, Jeroen Beeckman, and Kristiaan Neyts
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22(7) 1424-1431 (2005)