Abstract

Generally when anisotropic materials such as liquid crystals are confined in a Fabry–Perot cavity, the transmission through the device becomes sensitive to the input polarization. While continuous tunability of the refractive index is possible by application of a small electric field across the liquid crystal, it is found that under certain circumstances a forbidden gap in the transmission wavelength is observed. It is shown that this occurs because of mode mixing brought about by a slightly twisted uniaxial structure in between the Fabry–Perot structure. A theoretical model is presented to explain the experimentally observed data, and there is excellent agreement between theory and experiments.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

Oblique-incidence liquid-crystal-tunable étalon

Larry R. McAdams, Robert N. McRuer, and Joseph W. Goodman
Opt. Lett. 16(11) 864-866 (1991)

Electrically controlled polarization-independent liquid-crystal Fresnel lens arrays

J. S. Patel and K. Rastani
Opt. Lett. 16(7) 532-534 (1991)

Behavior of cholesteric liquid crystals in a Fabry–Perot cavity

Zhizhong Zhuang and J. S. Patel
Opt. Lett. 24(23) 1759-1761 (1999)

Fabry–Perot etalon with polymer cholesteric liquid-crystal mirrors

Jay E. Stockley, Gary D. Sharp, and Kristina M. Johnson
Opt. Lett. 24(1) 55-57 (1999)

Switchable polarization-independent liquid-crystal Fabry-Perot filter

Enkh-Amgalan Dorjgotov, Achintya K. Bhowmik, and Philip J. Bos
Appl. Opt. 48(1) 74-79 (2009)