Fully continuous liquid crystal diffraction grating with alternating semi-circular alignment by imprinting

We demonstrate a fully continuous liquid crystal (LC) grating device with the alternating semi-circular alignment which exhibits the switching effect between the diffraction orders independent of the thickness of the LC cell. The continuous phase modulation in the LC grating with the rotational symmetry was achieved on a micro-imprinted surface where the semi-circular alignment of the LC was spontaneously produced. Our LC grating device in the hybrid geometry exhibited the perfect continuity of the phase retardation and the switchable diffraction with the diffraction efficiency of 44% at +/- 1st orders as a function of an applied voltage. It was found that the symmetry of the input polarization direction with respect to the grating patterns results in the interchange between two symmetric grating configurations. (C)2012 Optical Society of America