Abstract
This contribution is a personal view of the rapidly developing subfield of nematic colloids, with an emphasis on possible applications of these materials in future photonic microdevices. A brief overview of the most important phenomena, observed in the past decade in nematic colloids is given. It is explained why integrated photonics based on microstructured liquid crystals is feasible and future challenges towards the realisation of integrated liquid crystal microphotonics are discussed.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Miha Škarabot, Matjaž Humar, Miha Ravnik, Slobodan Žumer, Uroš Tkalec, Ulyana Ognysta and Andriy Nych for their valuable contribution to this work. The work was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) under the project J1-3612 and programme P1-0099. Part of this work was supported by the Center of Excellence NAMASTE.
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Igor Muševič
Igor Muševič received his BSc and PhD degrees in physics from the University of Ljubljana. He was a visiting scientist at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and Max Planck Institute in Grenoble. He is Professor of Physics at the University of Ljubljana and the Head of the Condensed Matter Physics Department at J. Stefan Institute in Ljubljana. His research interests include physics of ferroelectric liquid crystals, behaviour of liquid crystals in high magnetic fields, optical spectroscopy, forces generated by complex fluids, self-assembly in liquid crystal colloids and single atom manipulation at low temperatures. He is the recipient of several national and international scientific awards.