Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers for highly-tunable photonic devices

Abstract

Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers are advanced structures that benefit from a mergence of "passive" photonic crystal fiber host microstructures with "active" liquid crystal guest materials. Such a combination allows for a diversity of novel and uncommon spectral and polarization properties. The latter has simultaneously reinvigorated research in both fields of Fiber Optics and Liquid Crystals Photonics by demonstrating that such optical fibers can be more "special" and unique than previously thought. Importantly, a proper choice of Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers components, together with precise adjustment of their parameters, may result in various new high-tech photonic elements for different applications. In this letter novel developments of highly tunable photonic devices based on Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers, obtained recently at the Warsaw University of Technology, are demonstrated.