The refractive indices of E7 liquid-crystal mixture were measured at six visible and two infrared (lambda=1.55 and 10.6 mu m) wavelengths at different temperatures, using Abbe and wedged cell refractometer methods, respectively. The experimental data of the visible wavelengths fit the extended Cauchy equations well. Using the extended Cauchy equations, we can extrapolate the refractive indices of E7 to IR. The extrapolated results almost strike through the measured data. Thus, the extended Cauchy equations can be used to link the visible refractive indices to infrared, where the refractive index measurements are more difficult. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics

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A well-known method to suppress chaos in a periodically forced chaotic system is to add a harmonic perturbation. The phase control of chaos scheme uses the phase difference between a small added harmonic perturbation and the main driving to suppress chaos, leading the system to different periodic orbits. Using the Duffing oscillator as a paradigm, we present here an in-depth study of this technique. A thorough numerical exploration has been made focused in the important role played by the phase, from which new interesting patterns in parameter space have appeared. On the other hand, our novel experimental implementation of phase control in an electronic circuit confirms both the well-known features of this method and the new ones detected numerically. All this may help in future implementations of phase control of chaos, which is globally confirmed here to be robust and easy to implement experimentally.

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E7 is a room temperature nematic liquid crystal mixture with a high positive dielectric anisotropy and a high chemical stability. Because of its relatively high nematic-to-isotropic transition temperature, it is suitable for mid-infrared laser applications, where the absorption of laser light is not negligible and gives rise to a certain heating of the medium. In this paper we give a measurement of the refractive indices of the liquid crystal E7 at a wavelength of 10.6mum as a function of temperature. An empirical formula to represent the experimental data is also provided