Dynamic response of large tilt-angle flexoelectro-optic liquid crystal modulators

Fells, Julian A. J.; Welch, Chris; Yip, Wing C.; Elston, Steve J.; Booth, Martin J.; Mehl, Georg H.; Wilkinson, Timothy D.; Morris, Stephen M.

Abstract

Journal © 2019 We present here the first time-resolved tilt-angle and retardance measurements for large-tilt (>45°) flexoelectro-optic liquid crystal modulators. These devices have potential for next generation fast switching (>1 kHz), 0-2π analog phase spatial light modulators (SLMs), with applications in optical beamsteering, microscopy and micromachining. The chiral nematic device used consisted of a mixture of CBC7CB and the chiral dopant R5011 in a nominally 5 µm-thick cell, aligned in the uniform lying helix mode. As the device is dynamically switched over angles of ± 54°, retardance changes of up to 0.17λ are observed. Furthermore, the time-resolved measurements reveal an asymmetry in the tilt in the optic-axis depending on the polarity of the applied electric field. The change in the optic-axis exhibits a pattern dependence, whereby it is determined by both the pulse history and the applied field. This pattern dependence results in tilt-angle errors of up to 8.8°, which could manifest as phase errors as large as 35.2° in potential SLMs. These time domain measurements may allow correction of these deterministic errors, to realize practical devices.

Citation

Fells, J. A. J., Welch, C., Yip, W. C., Elston, S. J., Booth, M. J., Mehl, G. H., …Morris, S. M. (2019). Dynamic response of large tilt-angle flexoelectro-optic liquid crystal modulators. Optics express, 27(11), 15184-15193. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.015184

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 30, 2019
• Online Publication Date: May 13, 2019
• Publication Date: May 27, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 16, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 16, 2019
• Journal: Optics Express
• Print ISSN: 1094-4087
• Electronic ISSN: 1094-4087
• Publisher: Optica
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 15184-15193
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.015184
• Keywords: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1779311
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: OSA - The Optical Society; Crossref DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.015184; Article type: research-article; Similarity check: Screened by Similarity Check; Peer reviewed: Yes; Review process: Single blind; Received: 5 March 2019; Accepted: 30 April 2019; Published: 13 May 2019; Copyright: Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.