Design of polarization-insensitive multi-electrode GRIN lens with a blue-phase liquid crystal

Lee, Chao-Te; Li, Yan; Lin, Hoang‐Yan; Wu, Shin‐Tson

doi:10.1364/oe.19.017402

Cited by 62 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) microlenses [28][29][30][31][32][33][34] have been developed with several attractive features: (1) submillisecond response time, (2) alignment-free, and (3) polarization insensitive. Blue phase [47][48][49][50] exists over a narrow temperature range (1-2 °C) between chiral nematic and isotropic phases.…”

Section: Operation Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To simplify the structure, Lee et al proposed a multi-electrode-structure PS-BPLC lens as shown in Figure 14 [32]. The bottom substrate has a planar electrode while the top glass substrate has multiple electrodes with different widths and different voltages.…”

Section: Ps-pblc Microlens With Multi-electrodementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two major technical challenges have severely limited their practical applications and commercialization: polarization dependency and slow response time (several seconds or hundreds of milliseconds). The former can be solved by using residual phase modulations [26,27], and optical isotropic materials, such as blue phase LC [28][29][30][31][32][33][34], double-layered structure [35][36][37], or axially symmetric photoalignment [38]. Due to the intrinsic speed of NLCs, the response time of a LC microlens is usually in the order of 100 ms, which is obviously not fast enough for image processing, optical communication, etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Microlens

Liu

et al. 2014

Micromachines

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Electrically tunable liquid crystal microlenses have attracted strong research attention due to their advantages of tunable focusing, voltage actuation, low power consumption, simple fabrication, compact structure, and good stability. They are expected to be essential optical devices with widespread applications. However, the slow response time of nematic liquid crystal (LC) microlenses has been a significant technical barrier to practical applications and commercialization. LC/polymer composites, consisting of LC and monomer, are an important extension of pure LC systems, which offer more flexibility and much richer functionality than LC alone. Due to the anchoring effect of a polymer network, microlenses, based on LC/polymer composites, have relatively fast response time in comparison with pure nematic LC microlenses. In addition, polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) based on Kerr effect is emerging as a promising candidate for new photonics application. The major attractions of PS-BPLC are submillisecond response time and no need for surface alignment layer. In this paper, we review two types of fast-response microlenses based on LC/polymer composites: polymer dispersed/stabilized nematic LC and polymer-stabilized blue phase LC. Their basic operating principles are introduced and recent progress is reviewed by examples from recent literature. Finally, the major challenges and future perspectives are discussed. OPEN ACCESSMicromachines 2014, 5 301

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Section: Operation Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ps-pblc Microlens With Multi-electrodementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Microlens

Liu

et al. 2014

Micromachines

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“…In this paper, we demonstrate an alternative technique for realizing a gradual voltage drop, by using a layer with a high dielectric constant, ε. Although it is known that materials with high permittivity can be used as an alternative to resistive layers [13], to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the successful integration of liquid crystals with a ferroelectric thin film. Using the high permittivity of the ferroelectric thin film we demonstrate that a gradually varying potential between widely spaced electrodes can be obtained.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Ferroelectric thin films with liquid crystal for gradient index applications

Willekens¹,

George²,

Neyts³

et al. 2016

Opt. Express

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We report on the first ever combination of a thin film of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) with a liquid crystal (LC) layer. Many liquid crystal applications use a transparent conductive oxide to switch the liquid crystal. Our proposed processing does not, instead relying on the extremely high dielectric constant of the ferroelectric layer to extend the electric field from widely spaced electrodes over the liquid crystal. It eliminates almost entirely the fringe field problems that arise in nearly all the liquid crystal devices that use multiple addressing electrodes. We show, both via rigorous simulations as well as experiments, that the addition of a PZT layer over the addressing electrodes leads to a markedly improved LC switching performance at distances of up to 30 µm from the addressing electrodes with the current PZT-layer thickness of 0.84 µm. This improvement in switching is used to tune the focal length of the microlens with electrodes spaced at 30 µm.

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“…19 This is a phase that may be macroscopically considered as isotropic in the ground state, which, however, undergoes anisotropic refractive index changes when subjected to an external electrical field. In this case, the refractive index modifications may be similar for two orthogonal polarization components of light at normal incidence on the LC cell.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Focusing unpolarized light with a single-nematic liquid crystal layer

Galstian

Allahverdyan

2015

Opt. Eng

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Abstract. We describe a simple but very efficient optical device that allows the dynamic focusing of unpolarized light using a single-nematic liquid crystal layer. The operation principle of the proposed device is based on the combination of an electrically variable "half-lens" with two fixed optical elements for light reflection and a 90-deg polarization flip. Such an approach is made possible thanks to the close integration of the thin film wave plate and mirror. Preliminary experimental studies of the obtained electrically variable mirror show very promising results. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

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Design of polarization-insensitive multi-electrode GRIN lens with a blue-phase liquid crystal

Cited by 62 publications

References 24 publications

Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Microlens

Fast-Response Liquid Crystal Microlens

Ferroelectric thin films with liquid crystal for gradient index applications

Focusing unpolarized light with a single-nematic liquid crystal layer

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