Open AccessHigh-efficiency, tunable, fringe-field switching-mode beam steering based on a liquid crystal Pancharatnam phase
Author(s) -
Comrun Yousefzadeh,
Andre Van Rynbach,
Douglas Bryant,
Philip J. Bos
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
applied optics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.668
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 2155-3165
pISSN - 1559-128X
DOI - 10.1364/ao.404603
Subject(s) - beam steering , optics , liquid crystal , electric field , materials science , phase (matter) , beam (structure) , finite difference time domain method , optoelectronics , physics , quantum mechanics
We have fabricated, characterized, and analyzed a recently proposed non-mechanical beam steering device based on the Pancharatnam-Berry phase in a liquid crystal. The architecture of our proposed device employs a linear array of phase control elements (PCEs) to locally control the orientation of the liquid crystal director into a cycloidal pattern to deflect transmitted light. The PCEs are comprised of a fringe-field switching electrode structure that can provide a variable in-plane electric field. Detailed optimization of the director configuration is in a good agreement with experimental results showing that the half-wave retardation condition has been uniformly achieved across the aperture. Moreover, efficiency simulations using a finite-difference time-domain algorithm verify a high beam steering efficiency for the proposed device.