title: Electro-optic behavior of liquid-crystal-filled silica opal photonic crystals: effect of liquid-crystal alignment.
abstract: Photonic crystals made of nematic liquid crystal intercalated into the void space of close-packed silica spheres (synthetic porous opal) exhibit significant electric-field-induced shift of the optical Bragg reflection peak when the liquid crystal has the long molecular axis oriented parallel to the sphere surfaces. No such effect is observed for comparable fields when the long-axis orientation is normal to the sphere surfaces.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Maclennan
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Zakhidov
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Baughman