Low-birefringence liquid crystal mixtures for photonic liquid crystal fibres application

Abstract

Series of low-birefringence liquid crystal mixtures composed of alkyl alkylbicyclohexyl carbonates and modified mixtures with other compounds have been formulated, their refractive indices and electric permittivity measured upon temperature. They exhibit the ordinary refraction index no lower than the refractive index of silica glass in a different range of temperature. This enables to observe in photonic liquid crystal fibres (PLCFs) a change in the light propagation mechanism from photonic band gap guiding to modified total internal reflection at different temperatures. Selected applications of PLCFs are also discussed.