Abstract
In this paper, we present electrooptic experiments on photonic crystal fibers filled with a liquid crystalline blue phase. These fibers guide light via photonic band gaps (PBGs). The blue phase is isotropic in the field-off state but becomes birefringent under an electric field. This leads to a polarization dependent shift of the PBGs. Interestingly, the effect on the PBGs is asymmetrical: while the short wavelength edges of the PBGs shift, the long wavelength edges are almost unaffected. By performing band gap and modal analyses via the finite element simulations, we find that the asymmetric shift is the result of the mixed polarization of the involved photonic bands. Finally, we use the band gap shifts to calculate effective Kerr constants of the blue phase.
Highlights
Blue phases (BPs) are chiral liquid crystalline phases which exhibit a three dimensional structure
In this paper, we present electrooptic experiments on photonic crystal fibers filled with a liquid crystalline blue phase
For very large electric field strengths, the chiral structure becomes unwound to a nematic state. δn approaches a saturation value ∆n(T ), which corresponds approximately to the birefringence of the nematic phase that appears in a racemic mixture instead of a BP
Summary
Blue phases (BPs) are chiral liquid crystalline phases which exhibit a three dimensional structure. For the BP I and BP II, the three dimensional structure is composed of double twist cylinders [Fig. 1(b)] stacked in a cubic lattice [1, 2] This cubic super structure makes BPs optically isotropic in the absence of external electric or magnetic fields. Only thermal tuning of blue phase photonic crystal fibers (BPPCFs) has been investigated [22, 23] in order to change the transmission. We connect the changes in the band gap guidance to the Kerr constant of the blue phase material
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