G. Arnone et al., OPTICAL FREEDERICKSZ TRANSITION INDUCED BY DEPOLARIZED LIGHT, Molecular crystals and liquid crystals science and technology. Section A, Molecular crystals and liquid crystals, 282, 1996, pp. 191-204
The optical Freedericksz effect induced by depolarized laser light in
a nematic liquid crystal is investigated both theoretically and experi
mentally. By ''depolarized'' is here intended light having a rapidly v
arying polarization whose density matrix is isotropic. The main featur
es of the phenomenon are determined only by the average properties of
the light. However, when the light polarization dynamics is about one
order of magnitude faster than the response time of the liquid crystal
, the system becomes very sensitive to the temporal correlations of li
ght polarization, i.e., to the fourth-order time correlations of the o
ptical field. This prediction is confirmed by the experimental results
.