Liquid Crystals for Photonic Applications

Liquid crystals have been widely investigated for variety of applications. Their photonic applications area is also growing continuously which includes- sensors, photonic crystals, meta-materials, smart windows, plasmonic-structures, lens technologies, diffraction optics and THz devices. The liquid crystal wave guides, solitary wave propagation, lasing, liquid crystal lens etc., along with various factors affecting their performance such as birefringence, alignment of molecules, external stimulus and LC defects, etc., are discussed in the present article.