Electrically tunable liquid crystal optical microresonators Export

@article{citeulike:5984594, abstract = {Because of their small mode volume and high Q-factors, optical microresonators are interesting for applications such as laser sources, active filters and all-optical switches. Especially interesting are tunable resonators, in which the resonance frequency tuning by size, shape, temperature or electric field can be achieved. Here we demonstrate electrically tunable, low-loss whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonators made of nematic liquid crystal droplets, embedded in a polymer matrix. The shift in resonant frequencies is achieved via electric field-induced structural distortion of the birefringent liquid crystal resonator medium. Nematic liquid crystal microresonators have a large tuning range of the order of 20 nm at 2.6 V m-1 for a 600 nm WGM in 17-m-diameter droplets and high Q-factors up to 12,000 in 33-m-diameter droplets. The tunability is approximately two orders of magnitude larger than usually achieved in solid-state microresonators.}, author = {Humar, M. and Ravnik, M. and Pajk, S. and Musevic, I.}, citeulike-article-id = {5984594}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2009.170}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2009.170}, day = {27}, doi = {10.1038/nphoton.2009.170}, issn = {1749-4885}, journal = {Nature Photonics}, keywords = {experiment, liquid\_crystal, pdms, ring\_resonator, spherical\_resonator, tunable}, month = {September}, number = {10}, pages = {595--600}, posted-at = {2009-10-22 12:46:03}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, title = {Electrically tunable liquid crystal optical microresonators}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2009.170}, volume = {3}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:5984594 L3 - citeulike-article-id:5984594 N2 - Because of their small mode volume and high Q-factors, optical microresonators are interesting for applications such as laser sources, active filters and all-optical switches. Especially interesting are tunable resonators, in which the resonance frequency tuning by size, shape, temperature or electric field can be achieved. Here we demonstrate electrically tunable, low-loss whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonators made of nematic liquid crystal droplets, embedded in a polymer matrix. The shift in resonant frequencies is achieved via electric field-induced structural distortion of the birefringent liquid crystal resonator medium. Nematic liquid crystal microresonators have a large tuning range of the order of 20 nm at 2.6 V m-1 for a 600 nm WGM in 17-m-diameter droplets and high Q-factors up to 12,000 in 33-m-diameter droplets. The tunability is approximately two orders of magnitude larger than usually achieved in solid-state microresonators. IS - 10 JF - Nature Photonics SN - 1749-4885 EP - 600 TI - Electrically tunable liquid crystal optical microresonators PB - Nature Publishing Group VL - 3 SP - 595 KW - experiment KW - liquid_crystal KW - pdms KW - ring_resonator KW - spherical_resonator KW - tunable AU - Humar, M AU - Ravnik, M AU - Pajk, S AU - Musevic, I PY - 2009/09/27/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2009.170 ER -