Title

Polarization-Controlled Switching Between Diffraction Orders In Transverse-Periodically Aligned Nematic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

Transverse-periodic-oriented nematic liquid crystals (LCs) are a special type of optical axis grating that are capable of very high efficiency diffraction (theoretically, 100%) in thin layers of materials with thickness comparable to the radiation wavelength. In particular, they fully diffract linearly polarized input beam into circularly polarized +1st and -1st diffraction orders. We experimentally demonstrate switching between diffraction orders of such gratings when the polarization of the incident beam changes from right-circular to left-circular and vice versa with the aid of an electrically controlled LC phase retarder. Such a setup in which the diffraction efficiency and direction are controlled externally, without application of an electric field to the transverse-periodic grating, provides additional control opportunities and does not compromise the quality of the grating. The grating used in the experiment was 1.5m thick and had a period of 4m. The contrast ratio of switching between the +1st and -1st orders was as high as 267:1 for a He-Ne laser beam with a switching time of 6.6 ms. © 2006 Optical Society of America.

Publication Date

8-1-2006

Publication Title

Optics Letters

Volume

31

Issue

15

Number of Pages

2248-2250

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.31.002248

Socpus ID

33748678376 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/33748678376

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