Abstract

Using optical second-harmonic generation, we measure the anisotropic orientation behavior of liquid-crystal siloxane molecules embedded in a ferroelectric liquid-crystal matrix. An exceedingly high degree of in-plane anisotropy is observed, which could be unambiguously attributed to effective second-order susceptibility components ${\chi }_{\mathit{\text{yxx}}}^{(2)}$, ${\chi }_{\mathit{\text{yyy}}}^{(2)}$, and ${\chi }_{\mathit{\text{yxy}}}^{(2)}$. All coordinates refer to a rectangular surface-stabilized ferroelectric liquid-crystal sample cell with z the surface normal and y the direction of the unidirectionally rubbed interior polyimide layer. The second-harmonic efficiency that is due to the dominant electric-field-induced component ${\chi }_{\mathit{\text{yyy}}}^{(2)}$ of this binary guest–host system exceeds the efficiency of other liquid-crystal systems reported so far by more than one order of magnitude.

© 1992 Optical Society of America

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