Fast Nolinear Optical Mechanisms in Bi-Layered Cells Composed by Lyotropic Ionic Liquid Crystals with Dye and Viologen Films

Abstract

Mechanisms of the fast optical nonlinearity are studied in two types of cells based on lyotropic ionic liquid crystals (LILC) of metal alkanoates. They are (I) bi-layer cell, which consists of a thin dye film covered by LILC, and (II) LILC with electrochromic impurity (viologen). Applying dc electric voltage to the cell II leads to adsorption of viologen redox products with formation of a thin nanosized layer on the cathode. The dynamic holographic technique with pulsed laser radiation of the nanosecond duration was used to investigate nonlinear optical properties in both types of cells. The mechanism of photoconversion of viologen redox products under strong laser radiation is proposed to explain grating recording in the cell II.