A low-power all-optical bistable device based on a liquid crystal layer embedded in thin gold films

作者：Takase Yuki; Pham Tien Thanh; Fujimura Ryushi; Kajikawa Kotaro^*

来源：Applied Physics Express, 2014, 7(4): 042202.

DOI：10.7567/APEX.7.042202

An all-optical bistable (AOB) resonator device composed of a 430-nm-thick liquid crystal (LC) layer embedded in two thin gold films (MLM) is reported in this paper. This device allows the use of the incident illumination at normal incidence, whereas the previous AOB devices based on twisted nematic (TN)-LC function only for illumination at oblique incidence. The fastest switching time was measured to be 1.8 ms, which is significantly faster than that of TN-LC. Because the MLM device operates free from electronic circuits, it is promising for two-dimensional optical data processing, random access optical memories, and spatial light modulators.

• 出版日期2014-4