Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.375, 15-31, 2002
Light transport in opaque liquid crystal structures
An overview is given of recent work on multiple light scattering in opaque liquid phases and liquid crystal infiltrated macro porous structures. The nematic phase is relatively strongly scattering and for large enough samples permits to observe anisotropic light diffusion. Liquid crystal infiltrated macro porous glasses allow for temperature control over the light diffusion constant and, if infiltrated also with laser dye, for realizing temperature-tunable random laser action.