ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the term electro-optic effects is taken in the broad sense, that is, all optical effects caused by the application of an electric field. M. Stoimenova et al. have studied electro-optic effects such as resonance frequencies, harmonic oscillation, and acoustic shear waves for colloidal crystals. The electro-optic effects in the narrow sense treat the optical effects due to the Pockels and Kerr effects within higher nonlinear polarization. In general, electro-optic effects of colloidal systems are caused by the deformation of electrical double layers around the particles. Many cells with different electrode separations were made, and the distributions of the modulation intensity were measured. The resonance effect of colloidal crystals has been revealed for the first time by M. Stoimenova et al. using an electric light scattering technique. Many interesting applications of colloidal crystals are possible for electro-optic devices such as tunable filters, light modulator, harmonic generator, and color display.
