Soft Matter Macro and Micro-Photonics workshop

Modelling of soft matter photonic structures

Miha Ravnik 1,2,*
1 Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
2 Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
* miha.ravnik@fmf.uni-lj.si

Liquid crystals and structures of liquid crystals are capable of diverse control over the flow-of-light at the wavelength level, as well as below and above. In this talk, I will present selected modelling results of emergent photonic phenomena in liquid crystal structures. I will present the methodological approaches of FDTD, FDFD, neural networks, and laser modelling, in combination with the modelling of the underlying soft matter liquid crystal structures, as used in different soft matter photonic setups, such as use of neural networks for optical reconstruction and/or prediction of liquid crystal fields and design of lasing modes by liquid crystal based resonators. More generally, the talk is aimed to emphasise selected possible exciting research directions in photonic liquid crystal soft matter.