Electrothermo-optical effect in liquid crystals and its applications

Abstract

Electro-optical effects in liquid crystals (LCs) have been widely utilized in many optical components and photonic devices, thanks to the anisotropic media that can be easily manipulated by an electric field to modulate the light. In general, dielectric heating in LC applications is negligible because their orientational dielectric relaxations occur at high frequencies. Here we focus on a dual-frequency LC characterized by its much lower relaxation frequency. The field-induced heat strongly affects the LC ordering and optical properties. The electrothermo-optical effect reveals an unusual behavior compared with the well-known electro-optical effect in regular LCs. Based on the electrothermo-optical effect, some applications such as optical modulators or tunable optical shutters are demonstrated.