Electrical Reorientation of Liquid Crystal within Silicon Macropore for Photonic Devices

Author

Dyomin, Alexander A. ; Tkachenko, G.V. ; Tkachenko, Victor ; Abbate, Giancarlo ; De Stefano, Luca ; Sukhoivanov, Igor A.

Author_Institution

Kharkov Nat. Univ. of Radio Electron., Kharkov

Volume

4

fYear

2007

fDate

1-5 July 2007

Firstpage

301

Lastpage

304

Abstract

We present the simulation results for the local director distribution of a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) confined inside cylindrical macropores of porous silicon (PS). The Frank free energy approach is used to describe the equilibrium configuration of the NLC in porous media. The influence of the molecular anchoring strength and of an externally applied electric field is investigated. Bruggeman approximation is used while calculating the effective refractive index of each layer in a PS multilayer structure. The reflectivity spectrum of the latter is simulated using the transfer matrix approach. Electrical tuning of a NLC-PS optical microcavity designed for resonance at lambda = 1330 nm is demonstrated. Tuning range varies from 8.5 nm up to 16 nm for weak and strong surface anchoring conditions, respectively.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; free energy; integrated optics; microcavities; nematic liquid crystals; photonic crystals; porous semiconductors; reflectivity; refractive index; silicon; transfer function matrices; Bruggeman approximation; Frank free energy; Si; electrical reorientation; electrical tuning; liquid crystal; molecular anchoring strength; multilayer structure; optical microcavity; photonic crystals; photonic devices; porous media; porous silicon; reflectivity spectrum; refractive index; silicon macropore; surface anchoring; transfer matrix approach; wavelength 1330 nm; Liquid crystal devices; Liquid crystals; Nonhomogeneous media; Optical refraction; Optical tuning; Optical variables control; Photonic crystals; Reflectivity; Refractive index; Silicon; director distribution; liquid crystals; porous silicon; refractive index; tunable microcavity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Transparent Optical Networks, 2007. ICTON '07. 9th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Rome

Print_ISBN

1-4244-1249-8

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-1249-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICTON.2007.4296405

Filename

4296405