Project Title:
High-Speed Liquid CrYstal in Fiber Switch
94-1 06.03 8958
High-Speed Liquid CrYstal in Fiber Switch
Abstract:
Recently, we successfully filled and aligned the ferroelectric
liquid crystal (FLC) materials inside the hollow core fibers. By
applying electrical fields across these fibers, molecular
reorientation within the small core area (< 10um) was observed.
This molecular reorientation can result in an index of refraction
modulation. Therefore, phase modulation or amplitude modulation
can be obtained with this compact, simple geometry. The
significance of this proposed research effort is by combining the
merits of FLC organic switching devices and fiber technologies,
new electro-optic (EO) devices, such as in fiber switches, FLC-
fiber sensors, fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filters, second harmonic
generators, and high speed EO modulators, can be realized without
having to pigtail fiber to bulk devices, as required by current
EO modulators
Commercial applications include optical second harmonic
generation in the blue-green region, in-fiber switches, filters,
and high-speed electro-optic modulators.
Key words
Boulder Nonlinear Systems, Inc
1898 South Flatiron Court
Boulder, CO 80301