Orientational effect of an ordinary wave on a nematic with a hybrid orientation

An experimental investigation was made of aberration self-focusing due to orientational deformation of a nematic with a hybrid orientation subjected to the field of an incident ordinary optical wave. When the radiation was incident on a sample from the homeotropic substrate side, the reorientation occurred at intensities higher than the threshold for a photoinduced Freedericksz transition in a homeotropic cell of the same thickness, and it depended strongly on the angle of incidence of the ordinary wave on the sample. The effect was not observed when light was incident from the planar substrate side.