Towards liquid crystalline elastomer optically tunable photonic microstructures
Year: 2016
Authors: Nocentini S., Martella D., Parmeggiani C., Zanotto S., Wiersma D.
Autors Affiliation: European Laboratory for Nonlinear Optics (LENS), Via Nello Carrara 1, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), 50019, Italy; Department of Chemistry Ugo Schiff, University of Florence, via della Lastruccia 3-13, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Ottica – CNR, LENS, Via Nello Carrara 1, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), 50019, Italy
Abstract: In this paper we investigate the potentials of liquid crystalline elastomer microstructures for the realization of optically tunable photonic microstructures. While certain limitations regarding the compromise between feature size and structure warping have been observed, it turns out that the simultaneous presence of a refractive index tuning effect and of a shape tuning effect intrinsic to the LCE material can be harnessed to design tunable photonic devices with unique behavior.
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More Information: The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under he European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement n [291349] on photonic microrobotics. – The Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)KeyWords: Crystalline materials; Elastomers; Liquids; Microstructure; Plastics; Refractive index; Swelling, Direct laser writing; Feature sizes; Liquid crystalline elastomers; Mie scattering; Refractive index tuning; Shape tuning; Tunable photonic devices, Photonic devices