Abstract
A diffraction grating of polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) with polarization-selective characteristics is investigated. Electrically controllable gratings are produced using In-Plane Switching (IPS) electrodes. Indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes with a stripe pattern are used to generate a horizontal electric field parallel to the substrate on a single glass substrate. It is known from the experimental results that the number of diffraction orders can be controlled by applied voltage. Except for the zeroth order, the consistently highest intensity can be obtained for every other order of diffraction, and the polarization direction of the diffraction is perpendicular to the direction of the electrode stripes. The polarization direction of the zeroth order diffraction is parallel to the direction of the electrode stripes. Therefore, it can be used as a filter for light polarization.
Highlights
The combination of polymers with liquid crystals (LCs) has been widely investigated
The combination of polymer and LC can be divided into several applications depending on the properties of the material, such as polymer photoconductive film combined with LCs [1,2], LCs combined with polymer structures [3,4], polymerstabilized LCs [5,6,7], polymer-dispersed LCs (PDLCs) [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19], and LC elastomers [20]
The matching of the refractive index between the LC domains and the polymer material will determine whether PDLCs produce light scattering
Summary
The combination of polymers with liquid crystals (LCs) has been widely investigated. Its property of compounding has aroused widespread attention. Electricity was used to control the orientation of LC molecules to be in the same direction, so that the refractive indexes between the LC domains and the polymer were matched, and the light scattering conditions disappeared to make the film transparent [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. It is shown that electrodes made with stripe patterns on a single glass substrate can be used in In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology to generate an electric field parallel to the glass substrate This electric field was found to be able to control the direction of the LCs in the PDLC film, thereby forming a spatial periodic distribution between scattering and non-scattering, which resulted in the formation of gratings. It was possible to consistently obtain the highest diffraction intensity for each order of diffraction
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