Two-photon polymerization enabled multi-layer liquid crystal phase modulator

Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 24;7(1):16260. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-16596-8.

Abstract

The performance of liquid crystal (LC) spatial light modulators depends critically on the amount of cumulative phase change. However, for regular phase modulators, a large phase change comes with a slow time response penalty. A multi-layer liquid crystal (LC) spatial light modulator offers a large phase change while keeping fast response time due to the decoupling between phase change and time response through engineered sub-micron scaffold. Here, we demonstrate specially designed 2- and 3-layer LC cells which can achieve 4 times and 7 times faster response time than that of conventional single-layer LC phase modulator of equivalent thickness, respectively. A versatile two-photon laser lithography is employed for LC cell scaffolding to accurately verify theoretical predictions with experimental measurements.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.