Nonlinear Optics and Integrated Optical Switching with Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Waveguides

这项拟议的研究将开发用于光开关、光束控制和非线性光学(NLO)应用的铁电液晶(FLC)波导组件。光开关和光束操纵FLC组件将利用FLC的快速开关、低功耗和大的电光效应。开关的尺寸将很小，可以被密集封装以产生可以连续重新配置的大型开关阵列，而不会遇到阻碍其他方法的功耗或大小的限制。利用低驱动电压，光束操纵器将具有大的偏转和大量的可寻址角度。FLC NLO组分将利用近晶C*态的永久极序来定向FLC分子的分子超极化率，从而产生具有热力学稳定的2非线性磁化率的介质。2FLC介质可用于倍频激光二极管的近红外辐射。拟议的第一阶段研究将开发用于FLCL薄膜的光波导技术。在第二阶段，FLC波导将被集成到光束操纵器、光学互连开关和用于产生二次谐波的介质中。

The proposed research will develop ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) waveguide components for optical switching, beam steering, and non- linear optics (NLO) applications. The optical switching and beam steering FLC components will take advantage of the fast switching, the low power consumption and the large electro-optic effect of FLCs. The switches will be small in size and can be densely packed to yield large switch arrays which can be continuously reconfigured without encountering the limitations of power dissipation or size that hinder other approaches. The beam steerer will have large deflections and a large number of addressable angles using low drive voltages. The FLC NLO components will utilize the permanent polar order of the smectic C* state to orient the molecular hyperpolarizability of the FLC molecules, resulting in a medium with a thermodynamically stable 2 non-linear susceptibility. The 2FLC medium can be used to frequency double near infrared radiation from a laser diode. The proposed phase I research will develop waveguide technology for FLCL thin films. In phase II, the FLC wave guides will be incorporated into beam steerer, optical interconnection switches, and media for second harmonic generation.