Kent State University

University of Aberdeen

Corrie T Imrie

Oleg D Lavrentovich

Jie V Xiang

John M Storey

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

Sergij V Shiyanovskii

Andrii Varanytsia

Fred Minkowski

Daniel E Paterson

Daniel A Paterson

A lasing device includes an active layer comprising a cholesteric liquid crystal material and a laser dye, and a liquid crystal cell including spaced apart substrates defining a cell gap in which the active layer is disposed. The substrates include electrodes arranged to bias the active layer into an oblique helicoidal (Ch) state. At least one substrate of the liquid crystal cell is optically transparent for a lasing wavelength range of the device.

Electrically tunable laser with cholesteric liquid crystal heliconical structure

A liquid crystal cell includes substrates defining a gap and electrodes having one of (i) an in-plane geometry generating an electric field parallel with the substrates and (ii) a top-down geometry generating an electric field across the gap between the two spaced apart substrates. A liquid crystal material disposed in the gap between the substrates comprises a chiral nematic material formed by a mixture of: 1-(4-cyanobiphenyl-4'-yl)-6-(4-cyanobiphenyl-4&#x2032;-yloxy)hexane (CB6OCB) or &#x3b1;,&#x3c9;-bis(4,4-cyanobiphenyl)nonane (CB9CB) dimeric liquid crystal material; at least one additional dimeric liquid crystal material; and a chiral dopant. The liquid crystal material within an operational range of electric field applied by the electrodes exhibits a heliconical state with an oblique angle helicoid director whose helicoid axis is oriented parallel with the electric field and whose helicoid pitch is sized to provide diffraction or Bragg reflection of light in a spectral range of interest impinging on one of the substrates of the liquid crystal cell.

Field induced and controlled heliconical structure of cholesteric liquid crystal

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Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Corrie T Imrie