Electrically driving bandwidth tunable guided-mode resonance filter based on a twisted nematic liquid crystal polarization rotator

Abstract

A novel bandwidth-tunable filter is proposed based on nonpolarizing guided-mode resonance effect. The compact, electrically driving bandwidth-tunable optical filter is realized by taking advantage of the effect of bandwidth-to-polarization sensitivity and using a twisted nematic liquid crystal polarization rotator for simple and precise polarization control. The operation principle and the design of the device are presented. The center wavelength is fixed at 623.1 nm with a relatively symmetric line shape. The full-width at half-maximum bandwidth is tuned from 12 to 44.8 nm by controlling the voltage in the polarization rotator.