Paintable band-edge liquid crystal lasers

Gardiner, Damian J.; Morris, Stephen M.; Hands, Philip J.W.; Mowatt, Carrie; Rutledge, Rupert; Wilkinson, Timothy D.; Coles, H. J.

doi:10.1364/oe.19.002432

Cited by 75 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Ensuing conformations not only depend on the anchoring, but vary continuously with the cholesteric pitch. The structures with concentric layers found in cholesteric droplets with degenerate planar anchoring have lately attracted much attention with their use in advanced soft matter photonic elements such as Bragg resonators for micro lasers [28][29][30][31][32] . The recent detailed numerical and topological study of these systems shows 27 that the degenerate boundary conditions still allow enough degrees of freedom to at least partially accommodate the requirements of the intrinsic twisting and form rather simple defect structures.…”

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confidence: 99%

Topological zoo of free-standing knots in confined chiral nematic fluids

2014

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Knotted fields are an emerging research topic relevant to different areas of physics where topology plays a crucial role. Recent realization of knotted nematic disclinations stabilized by colloidal particles raised a challenge of free-standing knots. Here we demonstrate the creation of free-standing knotted and linked disclination loops in the cholesteric ordering fields, which are confined to spherical droplets with homeotropic surface anchoring. Our approach, using free energy minimization and topological theory, leads to the stabilization of knots via the interplay of the geometric frustration and intrinsic chirality. Selected configurations of the lowest complexity are characterized by knot or link types, disclination lengths and self-linking numbers. When cholesteric pitch becomes short on the confinement scale, the knotted structures change to practically unperturbed cholesteric structures with disclinations expelled close to the surface. The drops with knots could be controlled by optical beams and may be used for photonic elements.

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confidence: 99%

Topological zoo of free-standing knots in confined chiral nematic fluids

2014

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“…The emitted wavelength can therefore be tuned by temperature and possibly external electric and magnetic fields. Recently, polymerized three-dimensional microlasers have been demonstrated [49], as well as lasing in paintable dye-doped chiral nematic emulsions [50].…”

Section: Optical Microresonators and Microlasers Based On Liquid-crysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nematic colloids, topology and photonics

Muševič

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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We review and discuss recent progress in the field of nematic colloids, with an emphasis on possible future applications in photonics. The role of the topology is described, based on experimental manipulations of the topological defects in nematic colloids. The topology of the ordering field in nematics provides the forces between colloidal particles that are unique to these materials. We also discuss recent progress in the new field of active microphotonic devices based on liquid crystals (LCs), where chiral nematic microlasers and tuneable nematic microresonators are just two of the recently discovered examples. We conclude that the combination of topology and microphotonic devices based on LCs provides an interesting platform for future progress in the field of LCs.

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“…Low-cost, compact, widely tunable chiral laser prototypes have been created, which are continuously tunable from 450 to 850 nm and have a slope efficiency of 60%-70% [5,[8][9][10]. Self-assembling chiral fiber lasers are being created, which range in size from a couple of micrometres to about 100 μm in diameter and can grow several centimeters long.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modes of structurally chiral lasers

Topf

McCall

2014

Phys. Rev. A

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We employ coupled wave theory to enumerate the lasing modes of structurally chiral lasers. The elliptical modes are shown to be fundamentally distinct from those of a scalar distributed feedback laser. High threshold modes are shown to lase with the opposite chirality as the active medium, in contrast to their low-threshold counterparts that lase with the same chirality as the active medium. The lasing mode structure suggests the intriguing possibility of dynamically changing the polarization handedness of a chiral laser, as well as the possibility of lasing within the forbidden band-gap region. These observations arise from the fundamental interplay between the distributed chirality-preserving reflections within the active medium and the localized chirality-reversing reflections at the medium's boundaries.

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Paintable band-edge liquid crystal lasers

Cited by 75 publications

References 20 publications

Topological zoo of free-standing knots in confined chiral nematic fluids

Topological zoo of free-standing knots in confined chiral nematic fluids

Nematic colloids, topology and photonics

Modes of structurally chiral lasers

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