Fast response dual-frequency liquid crystal switch with photo-patterned alignments

A dual-frequency liquid crystal based optical switch with orthogonally photo-patterned alignments is designed and fabricated. The cell gap is theoretically optimized for high switching performance. The measured extinction ratio of first diffraction order is over 20 dB with a low electric field of 3 V/mu m. The switch On-Off time are measured to be 350 mu s and 600 mu s, respectively, both of which have reached submillisecond scale. Moreover, the switch is polarization independent, which has been predicted theoretically and further proved experimentally. This design is suitable in wide applications requiring fast response and polarizer free properties. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America