Investigations on the behavior of ferroelectric liquid crystals at microwave frequencies

Author

Goelden, Felix ; Lapanik, Artiom ; Mueller, Stefan ; Gaebler, Alexander ; Haase, Wolfgang ; Jakoby, Rolf

Author_Institution

Darmstadt Univ. of Technol., Darmstadt

fYear

2007

fDate

9-12 Oct. 2007

Firstpage

106

Lastpage

109

Abstract

Measurement results of a tunable phase shifter using a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) are presented in this work. The measurements are compared to results obtained with the same device but using a standard nematic liquid crystal (NLC) which may also be used for regular display applications. The realized device is a sandwich structure with a 23 mum thick LC layer between a fused silica and a silicon substrate. Using the NLC the achievable phase shift per dB insertion loss is around 10 deg/dB and 0.7 deg/dB for the FLC, respectively. Yet, the FLC offers 2.5 dB lower insertion losses for the presented device and by a factor of 8 faster switching speed, compared to the standard NLC.

Keywords

ferroelectric liquid crystals; liquid crystal devices; microwave phase shifters; Si; SiO₂; ferroelectric liquid crystals; fused silica substrate; insertion loss; microwave frequency; sandwich structure; silicon substrate; size 23 mum; tunable phase shifter; Ferroelectric materials; Insertion loss; Liquid crystal devices; Liquid crystal displays; Liquid crystals; Measurement standards; Microwave frequencies; Phase measurement; Phase shifters; Sandwich structures; Liquid crystal devices; Phase shifters; Tunable circuits and devices;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Conference, 2007. European

Conference_Location

Munich

Print_ISBN

978-2-87487-001-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EUMC.2007.4405137

Filename

4405137