title: Fast response dual-frequency liquid crystal switch with photo-patterned alignments.
abstract: A dual-frequency liquid crystal based optical switch with orthogonally photo-patterned alignments is designed and fabricated. The cell gap is theoretically optimized for high switching performance. The measured extinction ratio of first diffraction order is over 20 dB with a low electric field of 3  V/μm. The switch On-Off time are measured to be 350 μs and 600 μs, respectively, both of which have reached submillisecond scale. Moreover, the switch is polarization independent, which has been predicted theoretically and further proved experimentally. This design is suitable in wide applications requiring fast response and polarizer free properties.
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Wen
authors.initials: XW
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Xi-Kui
authors.initials: XK
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hong-Qing
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Ge
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Jia-Nan
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chigrinov
authors.forename: Yan-Qing
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Lu