Abstract

Recently discovered stressed liquid crystals (SLCs) are of a great interest because they provide largest phase retardation shift achievable within shortest time interval. This effect was accomplished by decoupling the speed of a liquid crystal layer from its thickness. SLCs easily switch 5 microns of the phase retardation at sub-millisecond speeds while 50 microns requires only several milliseconds. SLCs are therefore able to modulate the IR light with the frequencies higher than 10 kHz. The SLCs are polymer/liquid crystal composites; however, their electro-optic properties differ significantly from previously developed polymer dispersed liquid crystals and polymer network/stabilized liquid crystals. The applied stressed force aligns the domains, eliminating scattering and hysteresis at the same time. The phase shift is highly linear with the applied voltage, greatly simplifying the drive electronics. The SLCs pose intriguing basic scientific questions and may be used in a lot of new electro-optical applications (micro-displays, diffractive optical elements, beam steering devices).

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