Abstract
Small liquid crystal domains with random director distributions were obtained to show novel optical isotropy using a holographic exposure processes to treat chiral dopant liquid crystal cells in the isotropic phase (i.e., polymer-stabilized isotropic liquid crystal cells). The cells used to fabricate phase modulators showed unique performances, including low light scattering, polarization-independence, and fast optical response. Furthermore, an extra fluoro-surfactant dopant in cells showed that the phase modulators retained their performance but with considerable reduction of operating voltages, from 180 Vrms to 100 Vrms.
Highlights
Optical birefringence and dielectric anisotropy in liquid crystals (LCs) play key roles in making various electric-optical devices that are convenient to use, cheap, and fabricated
Cells with the same LC mixture and no chiral dopant S811 were individually processed via holographic and non-holographic exposures, with the former labeled as H-polymer-stabilized isotropic LC (PSILC)-0 and the latter cell labeled as NH-PSILC-0
Morphology types of generated polymer networks as anisotropic monomers in cells are usually sensitive to cell conditions during photo-exposure processes, including cell temperature [50,51,52], light intensity [50], solubility of monomers and LC mixtures [53,54], LC alignments [55], and various types of LC phase [56]
Summary
Optical birefringence and dielectric anisotropy in liquid crystals (LCs) play key roles in making various electric-optical devices that are convenient to use, cheap, and fabricated. Most LC devices are used to modulate optical intensity and/or phase modulation based on electrically controllable LC-reorientation with respect to various alignments for real applications [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The homogeneous alignment LC (HALC) cell is usually considered and used as a basic type of phase modulation device for laser beam steering [4], spatial light modulators [5], and tunable focus lenses [6]. Larger cell gaps are usually needed in HALC cells to fit optimal phase modulations. It is not very clear whether the better choice of electro-optical LC devices is polarization-dependent or polarization-independent
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