Measuring of high nonlinear optical properties in novel liquid crystals by Z-scan technique

Abstract

We present the preliminary experimental results on the measuring of third order optical nonlinearity in a 5HCB liquid crystal sample doped with methyl-red. These results are obtenided througth Z-scan tecnhique using a simple low power He-Ne laser in CW operation. We observe a great negative Kerr nonlinearity in the sample obtained in the regime temperature of nematic phase. For upper temperature, we observe a notable decreasing of the optical nonlinearity due to sample change to isotropic phase. In adition, we observe the presence of a nonlinear absorption contribution.