Electrogyration effect in a chiral bent-core molecular system

Abstract

The linear electrogyration effect is observed in the crystallike B4 phase of a mixture of chiral and achiral bent-core mesogens. A large birefringent monodomain with a single sense of chirality was selected for experiment. Upon application of a modulating electric field to the sample cell, a strong modulation of refractive index was observed. Analysis showed that both the linear electro-optic and the linear electrogyration effect are responsible for the index modulation with the latter being dominant. The effective electro-optic coefficient was measured to be reff = 21.6 pm/V at 488 nm. © 2003 Optical Society of America.