Liquid Crystal Optical Devices

Biomedical Optical Applications of Liquid Crystal Devices

Liquid crystals exhibit large electro-optic effects which make them useful for a variety of applications as fast, compact, and tunable spectral filters, phase modulators, polarization controllers, and optical shutters. They were largely developed for liquid crystal displays and in the last decade for optical telecommunications, however their application in the field of optical imaging just star...

Liquid Crystal in Precision Optical Devices

While the liquid crystal industry is primarily driven by the display industry, increasingly important applications in science and engineering have emerged such as beam steering, wavefront modulation and polarization switching and control. We will discuss some of the differences in construction techniques needed to produce a precision optical device rather than a flat panel display along with de...

Liquid-Crystal Optical Switches

The optical switching times of liquid-crystal cells using 5CB, 5OCB and PCH5 liquid crystal materials have been characterized as a function of applied voltage, V, and temperature, T. The transition time from 90 to 10 % transmission scales as V and is limited to 50 to 30 ns by the breakdown electric field, ~ 10 V cm of the liquid crystal. The time from the initial voltage step to 90 % transmissi...

Tunable and Memorable Optical Devices with One-Dimensional Photonic-Crystal/Liquid-Crystal Hybrid Structures

Modelling nematohydrodynamics in liquid crystal devices

We formulate a lattice Boltzmann algorithm which solves the hydrodynamic equations of motion for nematic liquid crystals. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated by presenting results for two liquid crystal devices where flow has an important role to play in the switching.