Single walled carbon nano-tube, ferroelectric liquid crystal composites: Excellent diffractive tool

We present a switchable grating based on chiral single walled carbon nano-tube (SWCNT) doped ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs). The presence of SWCNTs improves the diffraction profile of the pure FLC. The diffraction efficiency, i.e., the ratio of intensities of first order and zero order maxima is more than 100% for the higher concentration of SWCNTs in pure FLC. This phenomenon has been explained by the decrease in ferroelectric domain periodicity, due to the doping of SWCNTs in pure FLC, and optical activity of the chiral SWCNTs. These gratings with very high diffraction efficiency may find application in many devices. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3661170]