Abstract
Photoresponsive photoalignable liquid crystalline polymers composed of phenyl benzoate terminated with N-benzylideneaniline were evaluated. These polymers are capable of axis-selective photoreaction, photoinduced orientation, and surface relief grating formation. Polarization holography using an He-Cd laser beam at a wavelength of 325 nm demonstrated the formation of a surface relief grating with a molecularly oriented structure based on periodic light-induced reorientation and molecular motion. Electrical switching of diffracted light using an electric field response of twisted-nematic cell containing a low-molecular-weight liquid crystal in combination was also demonstrated.
Highlights
Surface alignment patterning of optically anisotropic materials has attracted substantial attention from the perspective of science and technology because of its potential application in photonic devices for polarized light communication
Polarizing gratings (PGs) have been researched and developed widely in the field of polarized beam manipulation because of their high diffraction efficiency and polarization selectivity [1,2]. These are likely to be applied to beam steering [3,4,5,6], imaging [7,8], and near-eye displays [9,10], as well as 3D displays and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) [4,11,12,13,14]
The diffraction efficiency is improved by increasing the variation in refractive index in the film or the non-uniform structure of the film
Summary
1. Introduction Surface alignment patterning of optically anisotropic materials has attracted substantial attention from the perspective of science and technology because of its potential application in photonic devices for polarized light communication. A PG is a diffractive optical element in which the in-plane anisotropic orientation varies linearly along the surface and the magnitude of anisotropy is constant [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. It is fabricated by methods such as optical orientation by two-flux interference exposure [24], micro-rubbing [25,26], photomasking [27], and direct beam writing [8,28]. The diffraction efficiency is improved by increasing the variation in refractive index in the film or the non-uniform structure of the film.
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