scholarly journals Design of an Electrically Tunable Micro-Lens Based on Graded Photonic Crystal

Crystals ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 303 ◽  
Author(s):  
YongLe Qi ◽  
XiaoHong Sun ◽  
Shuai Wang ◽  
WenYang Li ◽  
ZhongYong Wang

A micro-lens with an adjustable focal length (FL) is designed by using Graded Photonic Crystal (GPC) structures and a Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal (PDLC) material. The GPCs are formed by gradually changing the radius of the polymer rods in the Photonic Crystal (PC) with square lattices of polymer rods in the background of Liquid Crystals (LCs). The electrically tunable focusing characteristics of the micro-lens are investigated by loading a continuous voltage source to change the LC rotation angle. The sensitivity of the focal shift in terms of LCs tilting angle is 0.152 λ(nm/deg). Moreover, the effect of the defects and deviations on the focusing characteristics are also analyzed. This research is crucial for future applications of the proposed device in the integrated photonics and adaptive optics.

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 732
Author(s):  
Anna P. Gardymova ◽  
Mikhail N. Krakhalev ◽  
Victor Ya. Zyryanov ◽  
Alexandra A. Gruzdenko ◽  
Andrey A. Alekseev ◽  
...  

The electro-optical properties of polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films are highly dependent on the features of the contained liquid crystal (LC) droplets. Cholesteric LC droplets with homeotropic boundaries can form several topologically different orientational structures, including ones with single and more point defects, layer-like, and axisymmetric twisted toroidal structures. These structures are very sensitive to an applied electric field. In this work, we have demonstrated experimentally and by computer simulations that twisted toroidal droplets reveal strong structural response to the electric field. In turn, this leads to vivid changes in the optical texture in crossed polarizers. The response of droplets of different sizes were found to be equivalent in terms of dimensionless parameters. In addition, the explanation of this phenomenon showed a comparison of theoretical and experimental structural response curves aids to determine the shape of the droplet. Finally, we demonstrated that the addition of a dichroic dye allows such films to be used as optical filters with adjustable color even without polarizers.


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