Title

Sheared Polymer Network Liquid Crystal For Fast-Response Variable Optical Attenuators

Keywords

Polymers; Sheared liquid crystal devices; Variable optical attenuator

Abstract

A variable optical attenuator (VOA) at λ=1.55 μm using a sheared polymer network liquid crystal (SPNLC) is demonstrated. SPNLC is fabricated by mixing ∼15 wt % photo-polymerizable monomer in a LC host. To polymerize the SPNLC cell, a two-step UV curing process was adopted. Before shearing, the cell scatters light strongly, but after shearing the cell becomes highly transparent in the near IR region. Using an E7-based SPNLC, the attenuation of our VOA is rather insensitive to wavelength over the ITU C-band. The rise time and decay time were measured to be 35 μs and 205 μs, respectively, at room temperature. Such a response time is at least one order magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art nematic competitors. Comparing with other polymer-stabilized liquid crystals, the SPNLC exhibits a lower driving voltage and negligible light scattering loss in the IR spectral region. A reflection type, polarization-independent VOA with ∼240 μs response time and -32 dB dynamic range was demonstrated at room temperature and 35 V rms voltage.

Publication Date

12-1-2005

Publication Title

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Volume

5936

Number of Pages

1-8

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1117/12.613203

Socpus ID

31744433916 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/31744433916

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