Low-birefringence liquid crystal mixtures for photonic liquid crystal fibres application

ABSTRACT

Series of low-birefringence liquid crystal mixtures composed of alkyl alkylbicyclohexyl carbonates and modified mixtures with other compounds have been formulated, their refractive indices and electric permittivity measured upon temperature. They exhibit the ordinary refraction index n_o lower than the refractive index of silica glass in a different range of temperature. This enables to observe in photonic liquid crystal fibres (PLCFs) a change in the light propagation mechanism from photonic band gap guiding to modified total internal reflection at different temperatures. Selected applications of PLCFs are also discussed.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Nematic liquid crystal mixture
• bicyclohexane derivative
• bicyclohexyl carbonate
• low ordinary refractive index
• light guiding mechanism
• photonic liquid crystal fibre
• total internal reflection
• photonic band gap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Military University of Technology: [Grant Number PBS 23-651] and partially by the Polish National Science Center (NCN): [Grant Number NCN 2015/19/B/ST7/03650].