Liquid-Crystal Photonic-Band-Gap Materials: The Tunable Electromagnetic Vacuum
- 2 August 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 83 (5) , 967-970
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.83.967
Abstract
We demonstrate that when an optically birefringent nematic liquid crystal is infiltrated into the void regions of an inverse opal, photonic-band-gap (PBG) material, the resulting composite material exhibits a completely tunable PBG. In particular, the three-dimensional PBG can be completely opened or closed by applying an electric field which rotates the axis of the nematic molecules relative to the inverse opal backbone. Tunable light localization effects may be realized by controlling the orientational disorder in the nematic.Keywords
This publication has 25 references indexed in Scilit:
- Development of One Period of a Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystal in the 5–10 µm Wavelength Region by Wafer Fusion and Laser Beam Diffraction Pattern Observation TechniquesJapanese Journal of Applied Physics, 1998
- Creation of partial band gaps in anisotropic photonic-band-gap structuresPhysical Review B, 1998
- Transport Properties of Random Media: A New Effective Medium TheoryPhysical Review Letters, 1995
- Photonic band structures of optically anisotropic periodic arraysPhysical Review B, 1993
- Photonic bands in simple and body-centered-cubic cholesteric blue phasesPhysical Review E, 1993
- Photonic bands: Convergence problems with the plane-wave methodPhysical Review B, 1992
- Observation of photon localization in a three-dimensional disordered systemPhysical Review Letters, 1991
- Existence of a photonic gap in periodic dielectric structuresPhysical Review Letters, 1990
- Electromagnetic Absorption in a Disordered Medium near a Photon Mobility EdgePhysical Review Letters, 1984
- Spontaneous emission from a medium with a band spectrumSoviet Journal of Quantum Electronics, 1975