Abstract:
Liquid crystals posses large birefringence spanning the visible to infrared spectral regime and large optical nonlinearities. One advantage of dye doped nematic liquid crystal (DDLC) over a commercial liquid crystal spatial light modulators (SLM) is the resolution capability. The resolution of DDLC can be over 200 lp/nm compared to commercial SLM's typical resolution capability of at most 40 lp/nm. Since many dyes exist that will cover a wide spectrum, these DDLC films are promising candidates for developing broadband optical modulators and limiters, adaptive optics and dynamic holographic optical devices and for wavelength or coherent-incoherent image conversion devices.