Third-order nonlinearity enhancement in an artificial Kerr medium through bulk intrinsic birefringence.
Laser-induced circular birefringence measurements have been performed on a liquid suspension of polymer microellipsoids in order to study its optical nonlinearity as a function of the host liquid's refractive index n(h). The results show that the large values obtained for the chi1221((3)) term (1.6 x 10(-8) esu for n(h) = 1.330) can be explained with an intrinsic birefringence of the microellipsoids relative to their geometrical axes. The obtained values for the refractive indices are n || = 1.391 and n perpendicular = 1.368.
Spirito
M D
MD
Pizzoferrato
R
R
Zammit
U
U
Marinelli
M
M
Scudieri
F
F
Martellucci
S
S
Romagnoli
M
M