Electrical and optical switchings of the direcitons of cholesteric liquid crystals gratings

Author

Jau, Hung-Chang ; Lin, Tsung-Hsien ; Chen, Yan-Yu ; Chen, Chun-Wei ; Liu, Jui-Hsiang ; Fuh, Andy Y -G

Author_Institution

Dept. of Photonics, Nat. Sun Yat-Sen Univ., Kaohsiung, Taiwan

fYear

2012

fDate

19-21 April 2012

Firstpage

183

Lastpage

185

Abstract

This work proposes two mechanisms for switching the stripes direction of the cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) gratings. The stripe direction is dependent on the ratio of cell gap to natural pitch length (d/P0) of a CLC sample. Electrical switching is based on the different pitches at the planar state and the transient planar state. The optical switching utilizes the pitch shift by the photo-isomerization effect of the azobenzene doped in a CLC sample. Using the two mechanisms, we can switch the stripe directions in two orthogonal directions. The beam-steering capability of CLC gratings remains effect in both directions.

Keywords

cholesteric liquid crystals; diffraction gratings; optical switches; beam-steering capability; cholesteric liquid crystals gratings; electrical switchings; optical switchings; photo-isomerization effect; pitch shift; transient planar state; Optical diffraction; Optical reflection; Optical switches; Transient analysis; azobenzene; beam steering; cholesteric liquid crystals; phase grating;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Wireless and Optical Communications Conference (WOCC), 2012 21st Annual

Conference_Location

Kaohsiung

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0940-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WOCC.2012.6198181

Filename

6198181