Tunable optical and nonlinear optical response of smectic glasses based on cobalt alkanoates

Abstract

The nonlinear optical response of anisotropic smectic glasses based on cobalt alkanoates has been studied using dynamic holography. Laser-dynamic gratings induced by the action of nanosecond laser pulses were observed and analysed for such materials. It was found that the cubic optical nonlinearity of all the anisotropic glasses studied had an electronic origin in the nanosecond range, caused by nonlinear polarisation of the cobalt alkanoate complexes. Fundamental optical (refractive index and absorption coefficient) and nonlinear optical (nonlinear susceptibility and polarisability) parameters of mesomorphic glasses based on cobalt alkanoates could be tuned by varying the length of the alkanoate anion chain, thereby determining the interlayer smectic distance.