Abstract

A quaternary liquid crystal (LC) grating simultaneously performs dynamic control of diffraction angle, polarization, and wavelength-separation properties as shown in the following: (1) Diffraction orders in which light waves are diffracted can be selected by applying a voltage, (2) the efficiency of each diffraction order can be controlled depending on a wavelength of an incident beam, and (3) a pair of counter-rotated circular polarizations or linear polarizations with an orthogonal relationship are diffracted simultaneously, and this property can be controlled by applying a voltage. These diffraction properties and LC alignment structures are proposed based on theoretical analyses using Jones calculus, and their properties are now demonstrated experimentally. The quaternary LC grating can be used as an advanced optical element for industrial applications such as tunable polarization beam splitters and dynamic switching of propagation directions of light depending on wavelength.

© 2019 Optical Society of America

Design and fabrication of a tunable wavelength-selective polarization grating

Kotaro Kawai, Moritsugu Sakamoto, Kohei Noda, Tomoyuki Sasaki, Nobuhiro Kawatsuki, and Hiroshi Ono
Appl. Opt. 55(23) 6269-6274 (2016)

Holographic binary grating liquid crystal cells fabricated by one-step exposure of photocrosslinkable polymer liquid crystalline alignment substrates to a polarization interference ultraviolet beam

Kotaro Kawai, Tomoyuki Sasaki, Kohei Noda, Moritsugu Sakamoto, Nobuhiro Kawatsuki, and Hiroshi Ono
Appl. Opt. 54(19) 6010-6018 (2015)

Diffraction properties of a vector grating liquid crystal cell fabricated using a one-step exposure of a nonorthogonal elliptically polarized interference beam

Kotaro Kawai, Tomoyuki Sasaki, Moritsugu Sakamoto, Kohei Noda, Nobuhiro Kawatsuki, and Hiroshi Ono
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 32(12) 2435-2440 (2015)

Diffraction properties of liquid crystal cell with beat structure formed by photoalignment substrates

Ryusei Momosaki, Kotaro Kawai, Moritsugu Sakamoto, Kohei Noda, Tomoyuki Sasaki, Nobuhiro Kawatsuki, and Hiroshi Ono
Appl. Opt. 58(12) 3229-3237 (2019)

Dynamic polarization grating based on a dye-doped liquid crystal controllable by a single beam in a homeotropic-planar geometry

Hak-Rin Kim, Eunje Jang, Jiyoon Kim, Kyung-Il Joo, and Sin-Doo Lee
Appl. Opt. 51(36) 8526-8534 (2012)