Related papers: An Inorganic Liquid Crystalline Dispersion with 2D…
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…
We study both theoretically and experimentally the electro-optical properties of vertically aligned deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystals (VADHFLC) with subwavelength pitch that are governed by the electrically induced optical…
Since the celebrated discovery of graphene, the family of two-dimensional (2D) materials has grown to encompass a broad range of electronic properties. Recent additions include spin-valley coupled semiconductors, Ising superconductors that…
The macroscopic dielectric permittivity of dielectric crystals is related to the microscopic atomic polarizability of constituent atoms by the known Clausius-Mossotti relation obtained in the middle of 19th century. We derive a similar…
The electro-optical Kerr effect induced by a slowly-varying applied electric field in liquid helium at temperatures below the $\lambda$-point is investigated. The Kerr constant of liquid helium is measured to be $(1.43\pm 0.02^{(stat)} \pm…
Lanthanum phosphate (LaPO4) nanorods dispersed in the non-aqueous solvent of ethylene glycol form a system exhibiting large intrinsic birefringence, high colloidal stability and the ability to self-organize into liquid crystalline phases.…
Photonic metamaterials with properties unattainable in base materials are already beginning to revolutionize optical component design. However, their exceptional characteristics are often static, as artificially engineered into the material…
The Kerr effect on vesicle-like droplets is described. We give a simple derivation of the Kerr constant for a dielectric fluid droplet immersed in another fluid, assuming that the droplet in an electric field becomes a prolate ellipsoid.…
Ferroelectric materials underlie key optical technologies in optical communications, integrated optics and quantum computing. Yet, there is a lack of a consistent thermodynamic framework to predict the optical properties of ferroelectrics…
The magneto-optic Kerr effect is a powerful tool for measuring magnetism in thin films at microscopic scales, as was recently demonstrated by the major role it played in the discovery of two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnetism in monolayer…
Considerable research interest has been attracted to noncollinear magnetic structures for their intriguing physics and promising applications. In this work, based on relativistic density functional theory, we reveal the interesting magnetic…
Two new types of electro-optic effect that are linear in the applied electric field strength are theoretically predicted to exist in transparent dielectric crystals due to high order spatial dispersion. The first effect, which is quadratic…
Two-dimensional (2D) massive Dirac electrons possess a finite Berry curvature, with Chern number $\pm 1/2$, that entails both a quantized dc Hall response and a subgap full-quarter Kerr rotation. The observation of these effects in 2D…
The rapidly increasing number of 2-dimensional (2D) materials that have been isolated or synthesized provides an enormous opportunity to realize new device functionalities. Whereas their optical and electrical characterization have been…
We disclose the vertically aligned deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (VADHFLC) whose Kerr constant ($K_{\mathrm{kerr}}\approx 130$~nm/V$^2$ at $\lambda=543$~nm) is one order of magnitude higher than any other value previously…
A-type antiferromagnetism, with an in-plane ferromagnetic order and the interlayer antiferromagnetic coupling, owns inborn advantages for electrical manipulations but is naturally rare in real materials except in those artificial…
An electro-optic modulator offers the function of modulating the propagation of light in a material with electric field and enables seamless connection between electronics-based computing and photonics-based communication. The search for…
Recent experiments have reported that ferroelectric nanoparticles have drastic effects on nematic liquid crystals--increasing the isotropic-nematic transition temperature by about 5 K, and greatly increasing the sensitivity to applied…
Nonlinear magneto-optics is a very sensitive fingerprint of the electronic, magnetic, and atomic structure of surfaces, interfaces, and thin ferromagnetic films. Analyzing theoretically the nonlinear magneto-optical Kerr effect for thin…
Understanding the effect of electric fields on the physical and chemical properties of two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures is instrumental in the design of novel electronic and optoelectronic devices. Several of those properties are…