Related papers: Spatially twisted liquid-crystal devices
We present a method for full spatial phase and amplitude control of a laser beam using a twisted nematic liquid crystal display combined with a spatial filter. By spatial filtering we combine four neighboring pixels into one superpixel. At…
A liquid crystal optical device made of an optically anisotropic heterostructure is considered. The device consists of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) layer sandwiched by two phase-shifting anisotropic layers of a nematic liquid crystal…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
Vortex beams are a type of structured light characterized by phase rotation around the propagation axis, resulting in orbital angular momentum. Their properties make them useful in various applications such as high-resolution microscopy,…
Spatial light modulators are widely used to perform modulations of different properties of the electromagnetic field. In this work, a simple optimization method for general double-pass setups was developed. It takes into account the…
Recent advances in planar optics with geometric-phase superstructures have brought a new paradigm in the control of structured light and, in particular, has substantially enhanced the capabilities of generating and detecting orbital angular…
We present a tunable liquid crystal device that converts pure orbital angular momentum eigenmodes of a light beam into equal-weight superpositions of opposite-handed eigenmodes and vice versa. For specific input states, the device may thus…
The phase characteristics of reflecting and transmitting type twisted nematic liquid crystal based Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs) were measured using interferometry. Device parameters like contrast, brightness, input and output polarizer…
Structured light beams with space-variant polarization can be efficiently generated using voltage-tunable nematic liquid-crystal (Q-plate). By appropriately selecting the input state and the retardation of the Q-plate, an optical field…
Topological photonics harnesses the physics of topological insulators to control the behavior of light. Photonic modes robust against material imperfections are an example of such control. In this work, we propose a soft-matter platform…
The reorientational nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals enables a self-localized spatial soliton and its waveguide to be deflected or destroyed by a control beam propagating across the cell. We demonstrate a simple all-optical…
We investigate the switching dynamics of multistable nematic liquid crystal devices. In particular we identify a remarkably simple 2-dimensional (2D) device which exploits hybrid alignment at the surfaces to yield a bistable response. We…
Thermotropic liquid crystals are versatile optical materials that exhibit a state of matter intermediate between liquids and solids. Their properties can change significantly with temperature, pressure, or other external factors, leading to…
Time crystals are unexpected states of matter that spontaneously break time translation symmetry either in a discrete or continuous manner. However, spatially-mesoscale space-time crystals that break both the space and time symmetries have…
The propagation of the quantum states of light in dispersive and anisotropic media is a fundamental problem in quantum optics. We present a unified theoretical framework for the propagation of the quantum states of light in…
Structured optical materials provide a promising platform for photonic quantum information processing in free space. Beam splitters, a fundamental building block of photonic circuits, have recently been demonstrated in free space using…
Liquid crystals allow for the real-time control of the polarization of light. We describe and provide some experimental examples of the types of general polarization transformations, including universal polarization transformations, that…
In search for novel nematic materials, a laterally linked H-shaped liquid crystal dimer have been synthesized and characterized. The distinct feature of the material is a very broad temperature range (about 50 oC) of the nematic phase,…
We propose a theoretical framework to dynamically control the degree of polarization of light by using the superposition of incoherent orthogonally polarized beams in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer incorporating a twisted nematic liquid…
We show that the mechanical effect of light on the orientational ordering of the crystalline axis of a mesophase can be used to control the dynamics of the optical response of liquid crystal infiltrated photonic structures. The…