High-speed wavelength tunable liquid crystal filter

Author

Sneh, A. ; Johnson, K.M. ; Jian-Yu Liu

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Colorado Univ., Boulder, CO, USA

Volume

7

Issue

4

fYear

1995

fDate

4/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

379

Lastpage

381

Abstract

We describe the first high-speed, continuously tunable liquid crystal optical filter suitable for wavelength division multiaccess (WDMA) optical networks. The filter utilizes chiral smectic A* electroclinic liquid crystal as the active cavity material in a Fabry-Perot etalon to obtain microsecond switching speed. Using the commercially available BDH764E liquid crystal material, we demonstrate a tunable optical filter with a switching speed of less than 10 μs and a tuning range of approximately 30 nm, when the filter passband is centered at 1.55 μm.

Keywords

band-pass filters; liquid crystal devices; multi-access systems; optical communication equipment; optical filters; optical switches; smectic liquid crystals; tuning; wavelength division multiplexing; 1.55 mum; 10 mus; BDH764E liquid crystal material; Fabry-Perot etalon; active cavity material; chiral smectic A* electroclinic liquid crystal; continuously tunable liquid crystal optical filter; filter passband; high-speed wavelength tunable liquid crystal filter; microsecond switching speed; switching speed; tunable optical filter; tuning range; wavelength division multiaccess optical networks; Crystalline materials; Energy consumption; Fabry-Perot; Liquid crystals; Optical filters; Optical materials; Optical tuning; Passband; Phase modulation; Refractive index;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/68.376808

Filename

376808