Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Enhancement Of Photoinduced Anisotropy And All-Optical Switching In Bacteriorhodopsin Films, Pengfei Wu, D.V.G.L.N. Rao, B. R. Kimball, M. Nakashima, B. S. Decristofano

Physics Faculty Publications

Large enhancement of photoanisotropic effects is demonstrated in thin films of the biomaterial Bacteriorhodopsin by using two exciting beams of orthogonal polarization. The mechanism of the enhancement originates from optimization of direction-selected photoisomerization of the biomaterial controlled by the polarized exciting beams. The technique is applied for achieving an all-optical switch with the additional feature of output sign control.