Electrically tunable chiral nematic liquid crystal photonic crystal fibers

摘要

Liquid crystal photonic crystal fibers (LC-PCFs) are a new class of optical waveguides. We found that chiral nematic liquid crystals, infiltrated in photonic crystal fibers, allow an effective electrical control of such optical waveguides. An optical method for measurement of the bandwidth of the reflection spectral band (expressing the bandgap of the LC-PCF) is presented. We succeeded in achieving an effective driving of the helix axis alignment at a diversity of electric field magnitudes and frequencies.