Collective Rotation of Molecules Driven by the Angular Momentum of Light in a Nematic Film
- 10 November 1986
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 57 (19), 2423-2426
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.57.2423
Abstract
It is experimentally demonstrated that a circularly polarized laser beam normally incident on a homeotropically aligned nematic film can induce a collective precession of the molecules in the film if the laser intensity is above the threshold for the Fréedericksz transition. The effect is shown to result from a transfer of angular momentum from the laser beam to the medium.Keywords
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