title: Self-alignment of liquid crystals in three-dimensional photonic crystals.
abstract: We report on the observation of self-alignment of nematic liquid crystals into colloidal photonic crystals, over distances much larger than the typical size of the voids between the spheres. We observe that the infiltrated structure possesses a unique optical axis that is determined by an intrinsic structural anisotropy of photonic crystal opals. We develop a simple model to describe this self-alignment based on the connectivity of the pores. The resulting structure constitutes a polarization dependent photonic crystal that can be controlled electrically.
authors.affiliation: European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy and INFM-MATIS, via Nello Carrara 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Florence), Italy. gottardo@lens.unifi.it
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gottardo
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Burresi
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Geobaldo
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pallavidino
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Giorgis
authors.forename: Diederik S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Wiersma