Novel Electrical and Optical Properties of Liquid Crystals Infiltrated in Opal as Photonic Crystal

Abstract Various liquid crystals can be infiltrated into interconnected nanosize voids in a three-dimensional periodic array of SiO2 spheres, synthetic opals, as photonic crystals. As an example of tunable photonic crystals, it has been demonstrated that the optical stop band in transmission spectrum of the liquid crystal infiltrated opal shifts with changing temperature, which can be interpreted in terms of temperature dependence of the refractive index and confirmed by the theoretical calculation of the band structure. This phenomenon can be utilized as a method to evaluate the refractive index. Tunability of optical properties of photonic crystal is also demonstrated in infiltrated replicas of opals. Effects of electric field application on properties of the infiltrated opals are also clarified.

[1]  A. Zakhidov,et al.  The Optical Properties of Porous Opal Crystals Infiltrated with Organic Molecules , 1997 .

[2]  Masanori Ozaki,et al.  Amplified spontaneous emission and lasing in conducting polymers and fluorescent dyes in opals as photonic crystals , 1999 .

[3]  M. Ozaki,et al.  Thickness and temperature dependences of dielectric property and electro-optic effect in ferroelectric liquid crystal , 1984 .

[4]  M. Ozaki,et al.  Dependence of spontaneous polarization on orientation and position of several bond moments near chiral parts in ferroelectric liquid crystals , 1988 .

[5]  Chan,et al.  Existence of a photonic gap in periodic dielectric structures. , 1990, Physical review letters.

[6]  M. Ozaki,et al.  Characteristic of dielectric behaviour of ferroelectric liquid crystal at smectic-A and chiral smectic-C phase transition , 1987 .

[7]  M. Ozaki,et al.  Electrical properties of a periodic porous carbon replica of opal , 1999 .

[8]  M. Ozaki,et al.  Tunable Optical Stop Band and Reflection Peak in Synthetic Opal Infiltrated with Liquid Crystal and Conducting Polymer as Photonic Crystal , 1999 .

[9]  E. Yablonovitch,et al.  Inhibited spontaneous emission in solid-state physics and electronics. , 1987, Physical review letters.

[10]  K. Yoshino,et al.  Optical and electrical properties of opal carbon replica and effect of pyrolysis , 2000 .

[11]  John,et al.  Strong localization of photons in certain disordered dielectric superlattices. , 1987, Physical review letters.

[12]  M. Ozaki,et al.  Tunable Optical Stop Band Utilizing Thermochromism of Synthetic Opal Infiltrated with Conducting Polymer , 1999 .

[13]  Masanori Ozaki,et al.  Temperature tuning of the stop band in transmission spectra of liquid-crystal infiltrated synthetic opal as tunable photonic crystal , 1999 .