2021/07/03 by Andriy V. Kityk, A.V. Kityk, Marcjan Nowak +18
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft #physics.app-ph #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2107.01363
12 pages, 6 figures
arxiv created 2021/07/03 · openalex publication_date 2021/07/03 · arxiv updated 2021/07/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Photonic metamaterials with properties unattainable in base materials are already beginning to revolutionize optical component design. However, their exceptional characteristics are often static, as artificially engineered into the material during the fabrication process. This limits their application for in-operando adjustable optical devices and active optics in general. Here, for a hybrid material consisting of a liquid crystal-infused nanoporous solid, we demonstrate active and dynamic control of its meta-optics by applying alternating electric fields parallel to the long axes of its cylindrical pores. First-harmonic Pockels and second-harmonic Kerr birefringence responses, strongly depending on the excitation frequency- and temperature, are observed in a frequency range from 50 Hz to 50 kHz. This peculiar behavior is quantitatively traced by a Landau-De Gennes free energy analysis to an order-disorder orientational transition of the rod-like mesogens and intimately related changes in the molecular mobilities and polar anchoring at the solid walls on the single-pore, meta-atomic scale. Thus, our study evidences that liquid crystal-infused nanopores exhibit integrated multi-physical couplings and reversible phase changes that make them particularly promising for the design of photonic metamaterials with thermo-electrically tunable birefringence in the emerging field of spacetime metamaterials aiming at a full spatio-temporal control of light.