Highly Saturated Glassy Liquid Crystal Films Having Nano- and Microscale Thicknesses for High-Power Laser Applications

The optical properties of glassy liquid crystals (GLC’s) designed to provide high resistance to laser-induced damage are explored. GLC’s readily enable freezing of the anisotropic ordering of liquid crystals into the glassy state. This solidity avoids issues of fluid leakage while providing mechanical robustness and the promise of single-substrate coatings or stand-alone films of nanometer to micrometer thicknesses. A series of three increasingly saturated GLC’s were synthesized and tested for their thin-film (hundreds of nanometers to tens of micrometers) high-peak-power laser-damage resistance with nanosecond pulses at 1053, 532, and 351 nm, as well as their durability under continuous-wave, broadband ultraviolet illumination. The GLC’s with higher degrees of saturation demonstrated high resistance to laser-induced damage, extending from the near-infrared to the ultraviolet spectral region.