Polarized optical properties in liquid crystals devices with photoaligned metal nanoparticle gratings

Abstract

Liquid crystals (LCs) alignment can be controlled by the local enhanced light fields of the metallic nanostructures in the localized surface plasmonic resonant (LSPR) state. Here, a nanostructured metallic grating patterns with groove widths of 180 nm is introduced to align the nematic LC molecules on the glass prism surface to construct the reflective hybrid LC cell accompanied by a rubbed ITO glass slide. Using the polarized light microscopy (PLM) characterization, the optical orientation effect of the silver nanostructured grating patterns on nematic LCs has been investigated. As a result, the silver nanostructured grating patterns has been found to regulate the orientation of the LC molecules when illuminated by linearly polarized white light and determine the light transmission and reflection. The results demonstrated that the silver nanostructured grating patterns serves for the topological alignment of LCs which is usually aligned by the rubbed substrate. Thus, our hybrid LC cell with topological rubbing and light controlled variation of LCs alignment could provide new opportunities for photonic applications.