Fig. 1. Schematics of (a) the photo-patterning system and (b) the configuration of the LC PBAL and the designed director distributions for (c) PBAL-I (m=0), (d) PBAL-II (m=1), and (e) PBAL-III (m=−1). The white scale bars represent 100 μm.

Fig. 2. Micrographs of (a) PBAL-I (m=0), (b) PBAL-II (m=1), (c) PBAL-III (m=−1) under the POM and (d) the experiment setup for characterizing the PBALs with identical aperture size (ϕ=1.2  mm). The yellow scale bars represent 100 μm.

Fig. 3. Comparisons of the diffraction properties of the three PBALs. The diagrams of D versus L for three PBALs under (a) the LCP and (b) RCP incident lights. The insertions in (a) and (b) indicate the mutually reversed phase profiles for corresponding director distributions under different circularly polarized lights. The diffraction patterns for (c) PBAL-I (m=0), (d) PBAL-II (m=1), and (e) PBAL-III (m=−1) under (I–V) LCP and (i–v) RCP incident lights at representative distances are shown.

Fig. 4. Voltage-dependent diffraction efficiencies of the three PBALs under the LCP and RCP incident lights. The insertions show the EO performance and response of the fabricated LC cell.