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 st and st 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 thick and had a period of . The contrast ratio of switching between the st and st orders was as high as 267:1 for a laser beam with a switching time of .
© 2006 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Svetlana Serak, Nelson Tabiryan, and Boris Zeldovich
Opt. Lett. 32(2) 169-171 (2007)
Vladimir Presnyakov, Karen Asatryan, Tigran Galstian, and Vladimir Chigrinov
Opt. Express 14(22) 10558-10564 (2006)
Uladzimir Hrozhyk, Sarik Nersisyan, Svetlana Serak, Nelson Tabiryan, Landa Hoke, Diane M. Steeves, and Brian R. Kimball
Opt. Lett. 34(17) 2554-2556 (2009)