Liquid Crystal Materials for Laser Beam Steering

Abstract

Several new liquid crystal compounds have been developed for laser beam steering application. The asymmetric diakyl diphenyl-diacetylenes exhibit a low melting temperature, wide nematic range, high birefringence, low viscosity and small heat fusion enthalpy. They are excellent host materials for forming eutectic mixtures except for the small dielectric anisotropy. To enhance dielectric anisotropy, some polar diphenyl-diacetylenes and tolanes, and a new series of the nitro-azo-benzene dyes have been considered. Among these polar compounds, the nitro-azo-benzene dyes exhibit a mesogenic phase with melting temperature at about 80 deg C huge dielectric anisotropy, excellent solubility and relatively low viscosity. The solubility and viscosity of these dyes are about one order to an asymmetric diphenyl-diacetylene binary mixture reduces its threshold voltage from 3.5 to 1.7 V sub rms.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA285089

Entities

People

  • J. D. Margerum
  • Shin-Tson Wu

Organizations

  • HRL Laboratories

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Absorption
  • Absorption Spectra
  • Anisotropy
  • Beam Steering
  • Birefringence
  • Dielectric Permittivity
  • Enthalpy
  • Heat Energy
  • Laser Beams
  • Lasers
  • Liquid Crystals
  • Materials
  • Melting Point
  • Optical Properties
  • Phase Transformations
  • Physical Properties
  • Transition Temperature

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Polymer Science and Technology

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Pulsed-Laser Deposition