Acta Optica Sinica, Volume. 36, Issue 10, 1026005(2016)
Beam Shaping Based on Photopatterned Liquid Crystals
Recently, optical beam shaping has attracted intensive attention due to the fantastic properties and various applications of specific beams. These beams can be converted from Gaussian beams through particular spatial amplitude, phase or polarization control. In this work, a liquid crystal photopatterning technique based on dynamic microlithography with a polarization-sensitive photoalignment agent is presented. This technique enables the accurate, arbitrary and reconfigurable azimuthal angle control of liquid crystals, thus supplies a powerful approach for the tailoring of arbitrary fine microstructures with binary or continuously space-variant liquid crystal azimuthal orientations. Based on this technique, high quality vortex beams, vector beams and Airy beams are generated. Besides high efficiency, good electrical switchability and broad wavelength tolerance, the proposed devices also exhibit merits of compact size, low cost, dynamic mode conversion, and polarization controllable energy distribution. In this paper, our recent work on some specially designed patterns and corresponding specific optical fields is briefly reviewed. It may pave a bright way towards beam shaping and bring new possibilities for advanced liquid crystal photonic devices.
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Chen Peng, Xu Ran, Hu Wei, Lu Yanqing. Beam Shaping Based on Photopatterned Liquid Crystals[J]. Acta Optica Sinica, 2016, 36(10): 1026005
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Received: Jul. 6, 2016
Accepted: --
Published Online: Oct. 12, 2016
The Author Email: Peng Chen (njuchenpeng@163.com)