Electrically reconfigurable split ring resonator covered by nematic liquid crystal droplet

In this paper, an electrically reconfigurable split ring resonator (SRR) covered by sessile droplet of nematic liquid crystal (LC) is demonstrated experimentally. The magnetic resonance of single SRR decreases gradually by 237 MHz as external bias voltage is applied, resulting from increasing fringing capacitance due to liquid crystal molecular reorientation along local electric field distribution. The transmission phase can be modulated by more than 100 degrees. Furthermore, frequency tuning range of SRR increases with the droplet height, because of the significant enhancement for SRR capacitance difference between LC states with/without bias voltage. This work will be of interest for the development of reconfigurable metasurface and related application. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America