Light-Driven Pitch Tuning of Self-Assembled Hierarchical Gratings

Crystals

卷:11

Jing-Ge Wang¹  Sai-Bo Wu²  Rui Yuan²  Chao Liu²  Wei Hu²  Yuan-Hang Wu²  Ling-Ling Ma²  Qing-Gui Tan³ 

[1] Heze Vocational College, Heze 274000, China;

[2] Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Manipulation, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China;

[3] National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Space Microwave, Xi’an 710100, China;

关键词: liquid crystals;    gratings;    beam steering;    photoalignment;   

DOI  :  10.3390/cryst11040326

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Gratings are of vital importance in modern optics. Self-assembled cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) gratings have attracted intensive attention due to their easy fabrication and broad applications. However, simultaneously achieving arbitrary patterning and delicate tuning of CLC gratings remains elusive. Here, light-driven pitch tuning is accomplished in hierarchical gratings formed in a molecular switch doped CLC. We fabricate a checkerboard hierarchical CLC grating for a demonstration, whose pitch is optically tuned from 4.6 µm to 10.7 µm. Correspondingly, the first-order diffraction angle continuously changes from 9.4° to 4.8° and a significant polarization selectivity is also observed. In addition, hierarchical CLC gratings with triangular wave pattern, Archimedean spiral, and radial stripes are also demonstrated. This work creates new opportunities for soft-matter-based intelligent functional materials and advanced photonic devices.

【 授权许可】

Unknown