In this paper, we demonstrate the potential of liquid crystals (LCs) on the applications of small, simple, and tunable optical guided channels. Experimental results show that three operation modes of beam coupling can be achieved, depending on the feature of the electrically controllable refractive index, the incident position, and the specific design of electrodes. The dependence of the beam polarization on self-focusing and coupling effect are also discussed. The electrically controllable self-focusing and beam coupling are highly potential on integrated photonic circuits.
Keywords: beam coupling; electrically controllable; guided channels; liquid crystals (LCs); self-focusing.