Soft Matter Macro and Micro-Photonics workshop

Enhancing light-matter interactions with gold nanoparticles in tunable photonic liquid crystal fiber microstructures

Tomasz R. Woliński

Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Physics

Koszykowa 75, 00-662 Warszawa, Poland

Photonic crystal fibers filled with liquid crystals offer a high level of tunability due to significantly improved control of their spectral, polarizing, and guiding properties. Recently, gold nanoparticles-doped nematic liquid crystals were found to significantly lower threshold voltage and speed up response times by interacting with liquid crystals in microstructured photonic liquid crystal fibers.

We discuss the optical properties of selected photonic microstructures doped with gold nanoparticles based on both nematic and blue phase liquid crystals. Starting from early works with liquid crystal-core optical fibers, the latest achievements in the field of liquid crystal-infiltrated photonic crystal fibers modified by using gold nanoparticles are presented. It has been shown that photonic liquid crystal microstructures doped by gold nanoparticles can provide promising tunable optical properties, simultaneously enhancing thermal stability of the blue phase liquid crystals, enabling electro-optical modulation and switching for prospective tunable photonic devices.