This study examines the surface-assisted photoalignment effect of dye-doped liquid-crystal films having a homogeneous alignment. Observations made using a polarizing optical microscope, a scanning electronic microscope, and an atomic force microscope confirm that the morphology of laser-induced surface-adsorbed dyes at the command surface strongly affects the orientation of liquid crystals (LC's) in a manner that depends significantly on the intensity and duration of the pumping. In weak-intensity regime, a homogeneous and fine layer of adsorbed dyes competes with a layer of ripple structure in reorienting LC's. These two effects dominantly cause LC's to reorient perpendicular and parallel to the polarization direction of the pump beam in the early and late stages, respectively. In the high-intensity regime, rough and inhomogeneous ribbonlike adsorbents produced by rapid and random aggregation and adsorption form on the top of the preformed microgrooves, reorienting LC's irregularly. This surface morphology does not enable photoalignment.

This letter examines a planar cholesteric cell ͑CLC͒ doped with two collocated laser dyes as a one-dimensional photonic crystal. Adding phototunable chiral material ͑AzoB͒ allows the CLC photonic crystal to be lased at the band edges of the photonic band gap with a tuning range of over 100 nm. Tuning is performed by irradiating the chiral AzoB material with UV light, causing the material to undergo trans-cis isomerization in the CLC film. The tuning range is the visible region from 563 to 667 nm. Moreover, the tuning is reversible.

We demonstrated a highly efficient, polarization-independent and electrically tunable Fresnel lens based on dye-doped liquid crystal using double-side photoalignment technique. The maximum diffraction efficiency reaches 37%, which approaches the theoretical limit ~41%. Such a lens functions as a half-wave plate, and this feature could be well preserved under the applied voltage. In addition, the device is simple to fabricate, and has fast switching responses between focusing and defocusing state.

The dynamic pattern formation and the beam-steering characteristics of cholesteric gratings were studied. Films with a planar cholesteric texture and various thickness to pitch length ratios (d/p) were fabricated. An optical microscope was used to observe the stripe patterns of the cholesteric gratings formed by applying a voltage to the planar films. The micrographs showed that the cholesteric gratings were formed in two different ways, depending on the sample's d/p ratio. For samples with 1/2≤d/p≤1.0, the grating stripes simultaneously appeared across the whole sample, and the contrast of the stripes increased with time during formation. For films with d/p≥1.5, the stripes were initiated near the edges, and near the defects on the substrates, and then slowly extended to the whole sample along the rubbing direction. The diffraction measurements showed that the diffracted beams could be steered either electrically or optically only for the latter type of film. These results can be well explained theoretically.

This work examines a planar cholesteric liquid crystal ͑CLC͒ cell with a negative dielectric anisotropy, doped with laser dye, as an electrically tunable one-dimensional photonic crystal laser device. The lasing wavelength is demonstrated to be tunable by applying a voltage. Additionally, lasing can be switched on and off changing the frequency of the applied voltage. Wavelength tuning caused by the shift of the reflection band of CLC is attributed to the electrohydrodynamical effect in the negative dielectric cell.

This study investigates high-resolution photoinduced biphotonic holographic gratings in azo-dye-doped liquid crystal films. A biphotonic grating (BG) is formed under the illumination of one linearly polarized green light with the simultaneous irradiation of an interference pattern created by two linearly polarized red lights. This study ascribes the formation of this grating to two mechanisms. One mechanism is the green-light-inducing strong dye absorption followed by adsorption through the trans–cis isomerization; the other mechanism is the inhibition effect of adsorption induced by the red light through the cis–trans inverse isomerization. These produce a twisted nematic structure-modulated pattern, which, in turn, causes the BG. Additional experiments demonstrate that the formed BGs are electrically switchable and thermally erasable.

The adsorption rate of methyl red dyes on a polymer surface is studied and determined to be much faster than that on indium-tin-oxide-coated glass. Therefore, an optically switchable twist-nematic grating is fabricated using a dye-doped liquid crystal cell, with a glass substrate coated with a polymer relief grating.

This work demonstrates a reflective Fresnel zone plate based on dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals (DDCLC) using the photo-induced realignment technique. Illumination of a DDCLC film with a laser beam through a Fresnel-zone-plate mask yields a reflective lens with binary-amplitude structures - planar and focal conic textures, which reflect and scatter probed light, respectively. The formed lens persists without any external disturbance, and its focusing efficiency, analyzed using circularly polarized light, is ~ 23.7%, which almost equals the measured diffraction efficiency of the used Fresnel-zone-plate mask (~ 25.6%). The lens is thermally erasable, rewritable and switchable between focusing and defocusing states, upon application of a voltage.