[Polarization-sensitive characteristics of the transmission spectra in photonic crystal with nematic liquid crystal defects].

The polarization-sensitive characteristics in the transmission spectra of TiO2/SiO2 optical multilayer films of one-dimensional photonic crystal (1D PC) with nematic liquid crystal defects were investigated in the present paper. The transmission spectra measurements and simulated results show that the polarization-sensitive feature was obvious when natural light was normal incident onto the parallelly aligned nematic liquid crystal. There were peaks of the extraordinary light (TE mode) with center wavelengths 1831 and 1800 nm and the ordinary light (TM mode) with center wavelengths 1452 and 1418 nm in the photonic forbidden band, respectively. With applied voltage increasing, the peaks of the extraordinary light was blue-shifted, and coincided with the peaks of O light gradually. Their tunable ranges were about 31 and 34 nm, respectively. For the random nematic liquid crystal, polarization sensitivity was not observed. Meanwhile, an individual extraordinary light peak with center wavelength 1801 nm and an individual ordinary light peak with center wavelength 1391 nm were obtained in the photonic forbidden band, respectively. The peaks were also found blue-shifted with applied voltage increasing, and their tunable ranges were about 64 and 15 nm, respectively. The polarization insensitive photonic crystal with nematic liquid crystal defects can be achieved by random liquid crystal molecules, which make the effective refractive index of the extraordinary light equal to that of the ordinary light.