STATISTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF LASER-GENERATED INSTABILITIES IN A NEMATIC LIQUID-CRYSTAL FILM

In this paper we investigate the chaotic dynamics occurring in a nemat ic liquid crystal film during the director reorientation induced by an intense optical field. The experimental evidence of intermittency in the phenomenon of the molecular director reorientation is reported. It is demonstrated that the fluctuations of the transmitted light intens ity I(t) follow a non-normal distribution and, by calculating the q-th power of the structure functions of I(t), the multifractal structure of the attractor is characterized. On the basis of these results, a he uristic model for the energy exchange between the radiation and the ma tter is introduced, which is based on a two-scale Canter set with equa l partition intervals.