A thermally tunable narrowband selector based on a chiral nematic containing a binary thermosensitive chiral dopant mixture

ABSTRACT

We employed a thermosensitive chiral dopant (CD), characterized by its thermoinduced change in helical twisting power (HTP) in terms of the handedness and strength, to shift the Bragg reflection band of a CLC. A thermally tunable photonic bandgap (PBG) device was demonstrated using a one-dimensional asymmetric photonic crystal (PC) infiltrated with the CLC as a defect layer. With a temperature controller to shift the PBG of the CLC, two narrow transmission bands can be tuned in the spectrum dominated by the asymmetric PC structure. This optical device can find applications as a tunable narrowband wavelength selector or an intensity controller.

KEYWORDS:

• Cholesteric liquid crystals
• thermosensitive chiral dopant
• photonic crystals

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under Grant No. 104-2112-M-009-008-MY3.