Colossal Light-Induced Refractive-Index Modulation for Neutrons in Holographic Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystals

Martin Fally, Irena Drevensek-Olenik, Mostafa A. Ellabban, Klaus P. Pranzas, and Jürgen Vollbrandt

Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 167803 – Published 17 October 2006

Abstract

We report strong diffraction of cold neutrons from an only 30 μm thick holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (H-PDLC) transmission grating. The light-induced refractive-index modulation for neutrons is about $10^{- 6}$ , i.e., nearly 2 orders of magnitude larger than in the best photo-neutron-refractive materials probed up to now. This makes H-PDLCs a promising candidate for fabricating neutron-optical devices.

Received 19 June 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.167803

Authors & Affiliations

Martin Fally^1,*, Irena Drevensek-Olenik^1,2,†, Mostafa A. Ellabban¹, Klaus P. Pranzas³, and Jürgen Vollbrandt³

¹Nonlinear Physics Group, Faculty of Physics, Universität Wien, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Wien, Austria
²Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, and J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI 1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia
³GKSS Forschungszentrum, D-21502 Geesthacht, Germany

^*Electronic address: Martin.Fally@univie.ac.at
^†Electronic address: irena.drevensek@ijs.si

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Vol. 97, Iss. 16 — 20 October 2006

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