Electro-optic switch using a liquid crystal Fabry-Perot filter (Invited Paper)

We describe the use of liquid crystals in a Fabry-Perot cavity to produce optical modulation. It is shown that these devices can be used not only as electrically tunable wavelength filters but also as narrow wavelength optical switches with high contrast. The performance of the device is illustrated by experiments using nematic and smectic liquid crystals. Using nematic liquid crystals, for example, it is shown that the device can be used to produce an optical pulse of 10 microsecond(s) at low voltages.