Electric field controlled polarization grating based on a hybrid structure "photosensitive polymer-liquid crystal"

• Published in: Applied physics letters 2005-08, Vol.87 (6), p.061105-061105-3
• Main Authors: Blinov, L. M., Cipparrone, G., Mazzulla, A., Provenzano, C., Palto, S. P., Barnik, M. I., Arbuzov, A. V., Umanskii, B. A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.2009064

An investigation was carried out on a hybrid structure consisting of a photosensitive polymer in contact with a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) layer. Before assembling the structure, holographic gratings of different periods were recorded in the photopolymer by two laser beams with opposite circular polarization. Such gratings are known for their unique asymmetric diffraction in case of elliptically polarized light and can be used in optical polarization devices. Due to a spatial modulation of the direction of the local optical axis, the photopolymer modulates the anchoring conditions for NLC in a similar way. As a result, a new grating is induced in NLC with the enhanced diffraction efficiency (in a particular experiment it was four orders of magnitude higher than that of the photopolymer). The NLC grating also shows the characteristic asymmetric diffraction for the reconstructing beams of opposite circular polarizations. The diffraction efficiency is easily controlled by an external electric field.