Liquid Crystal Microdroplets and confined systems for novel shutters

液晶不仅对显示器很重要，而且对下一代光子器件也很重要。它们已经被用于制造可打印的激光器、智能窗口、自适应光学、可切换的光学滤波器和光学互连。该学生将研究液晶材料的新几何形状，最终目标是生产快速相位调制器。人们对液晶越来越感兴趣的一个领域是利用液晶的液滴来容纳材料。虽然使用聚合物已经有几年的历史了，但在乳剂、贝壳和气溶胶中使用液晶还是新的。这些系统有可能产生新的电光材料，其中折射率由外加场调制。研究将从研究如何控制液滴的形成，影响液滴形状和大小的方法，以及研究以可控的方式在液滴内获得不同液晶结构的方法开始。

Liquid crystals are not just important for displays, but also for the next generation of photonic devices. They arealready being used to create printable lasers, smart windows, adaptive optics, switchable optical filters andoptical interconnects. This studentship will investigate new geometries of liquid crystal materials with the ultimateaim of producing fast phase modulators. An area of increasing interest in liquid crystals is the use of droplets ofliquid crystals to contain the material. Although this has been done using polymers for some years now, the useof liquid crystals in emulsions, shells and aerosols is new. These systems have the potential to produce novelelectro-optic materials where the refractive index is modulated by an applied field. The research will begin byinvestigating how to control droplet formation, methods for influencing droplet shape and size, and to investigatemethods for obtaining different liquid crystal structures within the droplets in a controllable fashion.