The ferroelectric nematic phase: An optimum liquid crystal candidate for nonlinear optics

Abstract

Materials that exhibit high nonlinear optical (NLO) susceptibilities are considered as promising candidates for a wide range of photonic and electronic applications. Here we argue that the ferroelectric nematic (NF) materials have sufficient potentialities to become materials for the next-generation of NLO devices. We have carried out a study of the efficiency of optical second-harmonic generation in a prototype NF material, finding a nonlinear susceptibility of 5.6 pmV-1 in the transparent regime, one of the highest ever reported in ferroelectric liquid crystals. Given the fact that the studied molecule was not specifically designed for NLO applications we conclude there is still margin to obtain NF materials with enhanced properties that should allow their practical use.

22 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Ferroelectric-ferroelastic phase transition in a nematic liquid crystal
• Development of polar nematic fluids with giant-\k{appa} dielectric properties
• Intrinsically chiral ferronematic liquid crystals

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystalline phases
• Tuneable entangled photon pair generation in a liquid crystal
• Polarization patterning in ferroelectric nematic liquids
• Spontaneous electric-polarization topology in confined ferroelectric nematics
• Dielectric spectroscopy of a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal and the effect of the sample thickness
• Ferroelectricity in the nematic liquid crystal under the direct current electric field
• Generalization of the Maier-Saupe theory to the ferroelectric nematic phase
• A molecular perspective on the emergence of long-range polar order from an isotropic fluid
• Mean-field theory of the uniaxial ferroelectric smectic A liquid crystal phase