We show tuning of the resonance wavelength of silicon-on-insulator microring resonators with liquid crystal cladding. The electro-optic effect of the liquid crystal causes a decrease in effective refractive index for the TE-polarized light in the waveguides. Tuning of the liquid crystal birefringence affects primarily the longitudinal component of the electric field. We achieve a tuning range o...

It is shown that the addition of salt to liquid crystal cells, using a SiOx alignment layer, can actually reduce the ion concentration. This seeming contradiction may be explained by the ability of salt to complex with water and to aid the drying of the liquid crystal material. The results show a pathway to purifying liquid crystal devices to the extent needed for low-power low-refresh rate dis...

A polymer-wall-confined transmissive switchable liquid crystal grating is proposed and investigated by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain optical calculation and liquid-crystal-director calculation, to our knowledge for the first time. The results show how to obtain optimized conditions for high diffraction efficiency by adjusting the liquid crystal parameters, grating geometric stru...

We have proposed composite films composed of a molecular-aligned polymer and liquid crystal (LC) for substrate-free liquid crystal displays with high-contrast images. We successfully controlled the molecular alignment of the LC and formed molecular-aligned LC droplets in the polymer by controlling the fluidity of the LC/monomer mixture and the curing rate of the monomer. key words: substrate-fr...