Liquid Crystal Devices for Beam Steering Applications

Abstract

Liquid crystals are valuable materials for applications in beam steering devices. In this paper, an overview of the use of liquid crystals in the field of adaptive optics specifically for beam steering and lensing devices is presented. The paper introduces the properties of liquid crystals that have made them useful in this field followed by a more detailed discussion of specific liquid crystal devices that act as switchable optical components of refractive and diffractive types. The relative advantages and disadvantages of the different devices and techniques are summarised.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Morris, R
Jones, JC https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2310-0800
Nagaraj, M https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9713-1362

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Keywords:

beam steering; lenses; adaptive optics; liquid crystals; polarisation gratings; liquid crystal alignment; gradient index devices; diffraction

Dates: