Photonic self-router made of semiconductor and liquid crystal

A liquid crystal (LC) cell made of silicon (Si) electrodes was fabricated to achieve self-routing of optical signals. As optical pulses (1.06 μm wavelength) passed through the cell, they excited free carriers in the Si electrode, which triggered the voltage application to the LC layer. Consequently, the polarization direction of the succeeding pulses became perpendicular to that of the preceding pulses, and they were routed to different directions by a polarization beam splitter. Optical pulses or packets were self-routed to one of the output ports, as they passed through the cascaded LC cell.