Edge-enhancement of optical image by using photorefractive liquid crystals

Abstract

A large optical nonlinearity in novel photorefractive mesogenic composites was achieved with a low applied defield and a small fringe spacing. The resultant diffraction efficiency from the Bragg gratings was around 40% and tile grating generation time was around 200ms. The demonstration for edge-enhancement of two-dimensional optical images was performed by means of an experimental setup for real-time Fourier transform holography. These edge-enhancement effects were characterized by diffraction efficiencies versus intensity ratio of two writing beams.