Ch. 1. Physical Properties of Thermotropics -- Ch. 2. Basic Nonlinear Optics -- Ch. 3. Light-Induced Director Reorientation -- Ch. 4. Thermal Effects -- Ch. 5. Optical Properties of Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystals -- Ch. 6. Nonlinear Optical Effects in Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystals -- App. I. Relationship Between the Molecular and the Macroscopic Parameters -- App. II. Properties of the Pointing Vector During the Optically Induced Reorientation -- App. III. General Form of the Elastic Free Energy Density of a Nematic Liquid Crystal
Summary
This monograph is devoted to a detailed treatment of the nonlinear optical properties of liquid crystals. The basic concepts of director optical reorientation and thermal nonlinearities are presented showing the fundamental theoretical approaches and describing the main experimental observations. The presentation is self-consistent and tutorial although the subject matter is of current research interest. The last part of the book deals with more recent results on new composite materials: Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystals (PDLC). A general presentation of the optical properties is given and the observations of several nonlinear optical effects are reported
