Abstract

Artificial Kerr materials consisting of suspended particles in a liquid host have been shown to exhibit nonlinear optical behavior.^(1-4) If the suspended particles are spherical the suspension may display spatial variations in refractive index due to variations of the particle number density^(1-3). It has been proposed⁽⁵⁾ and demonstrated⁽⁴⁾ that a suspension of anisotropic particles will exhibit birefringence due to alignment of the particles in an electric field. The latter effect is predicted to be faster than the former by a factor of order (Λ/a)², where Λ is the grating period and a is the particle size.⁽⁵⁾

© 1988 Optical Society of America