Fluorescence and lasing in an electric-field-induced periodic structure of a cholesteric liquid crystal

Abstract

Abstract Fluorescence and lasing in a structure with an electric-field-induced spatially periodic director modulation in the plane of a planar-oriented layer of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) is experimentally investigated. The thickness of the CLC layer is chosen close to the natural pitch of the cholesteric helix, which corresponds to the second Grandjean zone. The electric-field-induced periodic field of the CLC director leads to spatial modulation of the refractive index and the appearance of optical properties typical of 1D photonic crystals, when light propagating in the plane of the CLC layer experiences Bragg reflection. In polarised light, the induced spatial modulation of the refractive index manifests itself in the form of banded domains oriented in the plane of the CLC layer perpendicular to the original (unperturbed electric field) direction of the director in the centre of the layer. For the electric field strengths that correspond to fundamentally different distributions of the field of a CLC director, the fluorescence spectra of the DCM laser dye are studied both for different geometries (including the waveguide regime) and for different levels of optical pumping. In the range of electrical voltages corresponding to the induction of a spatially periodic photonic structure, multimode lasing in the waveguide regime is detected. It is shown that the mode composition of lasing depends on the electric field, which affects the properties of the distributed feedback.