title: Kerr effect at high electric field in the isotropic phase of mesogenic materials.
abstract: The well-known Kerr effect in isotropic fluids consists in the appearance of uniaxial orientational order and birefringence that grows as the square of the applied electric field. We predict and observe that at a high electric field, the Kerr effect displays features caused by the nonlinear dependence of dielectric permittivity on the field-induced orientational order parameter. Namely, the field-induced birefringence grows faster than the square of the electric field and the dynamics of birefringence growth slows down as the field increases. As a function of temperature, the field-induced birefringence is inversely proportional to the departure from an asymptotic critical temperature, but this temperature is no longer a constant (corresponding to the lower limit of the supercooled isotropic phase) and increases proportionally to the square of the electric field.
authors.affiliation: Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.|College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China.
authors.forename: Bing-Xiang
authors.initials: BX
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.
authors.forename: Volodymyr
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Borshch
authors.affiliation: Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.
authors.forename: Sergij V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Shiyanovskii
authors.affiliation: College of Electronic and Information Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China.
authors.forename: Shao-Bin
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA.
authors.forename: Oleg D
authors.initials: OD
authors.lastname: Lavrentovich