Efficiency improvements in a dichroic dye-doped liquid crystal Fresnel lens.

A dichroic dye-doped liquid crystal Fresnel lens was fabricated and investigated to observe the combination of phase and amplitude modulation based focusing. An anthraquinone dichroic dye was doped into a liquid crystal host, which when in the Fresnel lens configuration, generates a Fresnel zone plate with alternating "transparent" and "opaque" zones. The zones were induced by using photo-alignment of a light-sensitive alignment layer to generate the alternating pattern.

Two-dimensional switchable blue phase gratings manufactured by nanosphere lithography.

Switchable two dimensional liquid crystal diffraction gratings are promising candidates in beam steering devices, multiplexers and holographic displays. For these areas of applications a high degree of integration in optical systems is much sought-after. In the context of diffraction gratings this means that the angle of diffraction should be rather high, which typically poses a problem as the fabrication of small grating periods is challenging.

Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals in Microcapillaries: Observation of Different Electro-optic Switching Mechanisms.

Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) can provide fast electro-optic switching effects in photonic crystal fibers, which are promising for developing integrated optical modulators to be used for optical telecommunication. The present study describes experiments on capillaries filled with FLCs, which pave the way toward application of FLCs in state-of-the-art solid core microstructured optical fibers. A method to achieve uniform alignment of the helix axis and the appearance of two different switching modes with switching times in the submillisecond range are found.

Measurement of group velocity dispersion in a solid-core photonic crystal fiber filled with a nematic liquid crystal.

Liquid crystal-filled photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) are promising candidates for electrically tunable integrated photonic devices. In this Letter, we present group velocity measurements on such fibers. A large mode area PCF, LMA8, was infiltrated with the liquid crystal mixture, E7.