title: Patterned color liquid crystal polymer polarizers.
abstract: We demonstrate patterned polarizers for visible wavelengths using dichroic dye in a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) host. Contact lithography is used to pattern a thin alignment layer, which subsequently transfers the pattern to the LCP. A gray dichroic dye mixture for the visible spectrum is optimized and implemented along with LCP to fabricate this polarizer. A peak extinction ratio of 41 was measured at a 633 nm wavelength, while simultaneously showing patterns as small as 3 μm. Finally, multi layer films are demonstrated by fabricating a two layer patterned circular polarizer consisting of a quarter-wave retarder and a color polarizer. Our process has applications in three-dimensional displays, interferometry, optical storage, and polarimeters.
authors.affiliation: College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. gmyhre@optics.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Myhre
authors.forename: Arshad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sayyad
authors.forename: Stanley
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pau
mesh_terms: D003116:Color; D004396:Coloring Agents / Q000737:chemistry*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D004396:Coloring Agents