P. Maddalena et al., OPTICALLY INDUCED REORIENTATION IN NEMATICS DOPED BY CHIRAL AGENTS, Molecular crystals and liquid crystals science and technology. Section A, Molecular crystals and liquid crystals, 261, 1995, pp. 113-122
We have studied the optical Freedericks transition for normal incidenc
e in chiral-nematic mixtures in cells coated for homeotropic alignment
. In the case of linear polarization of the incident beam two optical
thresholds were observed: the first one is second-order and the second
one is first-order, accompanied by very large hysteresis loop. In the
case of circular polarization, the double-threshold feature was notic
ed only when the light elicity was the same as the sample chirality. W
hen the elicity is opposite to the chirality, only one second order re
orientational transition is produced. The experimental results were fo
und only in partial agreement with the predictions of a simple plane-w
ave model.