Abstract
This work proposes a thermally rotatable grating that is based on hybrid-aligned cholesteric liquid crystals (HBA-cholesteric LCs). Experiments reveal that the HBA-cholesteric texture has a uniformly striped domain, which forms a grating, when the ratio of the cell gap to the helical pitch (d/p) is in the range of 2≤d/p≤3. The stripe direction of the HBA-cholesteric grating is predicted by the proposed vertically aligned LC layer model. The stripe direction of the HBA-cholesteric grating rotates continuously under thermal and electrical effects. Furthermore, the HBA-cholesteric grating has a larger rotational angle under the thermal effect (∼101°) than under the electrical effect (∼48°). Potential applications of the proposed thermally rotatable cholesteric grating for beam steering devices are emphasized.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 26837-26844 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Optics Express |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 24 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2012 Nov 19 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics