325-nm Laser System for Robust Liquid-Crystal Device Fabrication

液晶--一种同时具有液晶和晶体性质的材料--在本世纪的技术中得到了广泛的应用，例如在所有电子显示器中。它们经常用于高级研究实验室，特别是光学和光子学实验室。它们具有电光特性，可以通过外加电场控制光的偏振和相位，使其成为光束整形的极佳候选者。在我的实验室里，我成功地设计和制造了定制光束的液晶器件。这些设备现在被我的本地和国际同事广泛用于众多研究学科，从显微镜、量子传感和量子通信到物理学的基础研究。在我的工厂(加拿大唯一的)目前的仪器设备下，制造的设备的寿命被限制在几个月内，超过几个月它们就无法使用，浪费了宝贵的资源。这是因为当前用于光对准的激光(制备这些设备的基本步骤)的波长不正确，从而导致液晶分子在样品衬底上不能完美地“固定”。为了克服这些问题，我申请资金购买一种具有特殊性能(波长325 nm，功率100 mW)的激光光源，用于制造图案化液晶器件。虽然目前的激光器工作在405 nm，但众所周知，这种波长的差异对器件寿命有很大影响。这种仪器的使用将使LC器件的制造具有多年的耐用性。这种显著的改进对于加快研究活动和继续促进本地和国际合作至关重要，并在我的实验室培训HQP，使渥太华大学和加拿大在制造定制液晶设备方面处于领先地位。

Liquid crystals -- a material with both liquid and crystalline properties -- are widely used in the current century's technologies, e.g. in all electronics displays. They are regularly used in advanced research laboratories, in particular, in optics and photonics laboratories. Having electro--optical features with the possibility to control the optical polarization and phase with an external electric field makes them an excellent candidate for optical beam shaping. In my laboratory, I have successfully designed and fabricated liquid- crystal devices to custom tailor optical beams. These devices are now widely used by my local and international colleagues in a plethora of research disciplines, ranging from microscopy, quantum sensing and quantum communication to fundamental research in physics. With the current instrumentation at my facility (the only one in Canada), the lifetime of the fabricated devices is limited to a few months, after which they are unusable, wasting valuable resources. This is due to the fact that the current laser for photoalignment (a fundamental procedure in the preparation of these devices) at an improper wavelength, which causes an imperfect "fixation" of the liquid crystal molecules on the sample substrate. To overcome these issues, I am requesting funding to purchase a laser source with specific properties (325 nm wavelength and >100 mW power) for the fabrication of patterned liquid-crystal devices. While the current laser operates at 405 nm, it is known that this difference in wavelength has a significant impact on the device lifetime. The access to this instrumentation will allow fabrication of LC devices with years of durability. Such a significant improvement is essential to speed up research activities and continue to foster both local and international collaborations, and training HQP in my laboratory, putting the University of Ottawa and Canada in a leading position for the fabrication of custom liquid- crystal devices.