Fast switching beam steering based on ferroelectric liquid crystal phase shutter and polarisation grating

Abstract

We report on fast-switching and high-efficient optical beam steering based on a polymerisable liquid crystal polarisation grating (PG) in combination with ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) phase shutter. The PG was fabricated in a convenient single-step holographic exposure process using photo-sensitive azo-dye material as alignment layer for liquid crystal (LC) director. A binary electro-optical FLC was employed for circular polarisation selection, which enables the electro-tunable steering of the combined system. The efficiency of 95.7% with 82 μs switching time is obtained for 1064 nm laser. This work provides a versatile candidate for non-mechanical beam steering devices.