Polymer-stabilized blue-phase liquid crystal grating cured with interfered visible light

Opt Express. 2015 Jul 27;23(15):20007-13. doi: 10.1364/OE.23.020007.

Abstract

In this paper, we demonstrate a holographic polymer-stabilized blue-phase liquid crystal grating fabricated using a visible laser. As blue phase is stabilized by the interfered light, polymer-concentration gradient is achieved simultaneously. With the application of a uniform vertical electric field, periodic index distribution is obtained due to polymer-concentration gradient. The grating exhibits several attractive features such as polarization-independency, a broad temperature range, sub-millisecond response, simple fabrication, and low cost, thus holding great potential for photonics applications.