title: Axially symmetric polarization converter made of patterned liquid crystal quarter wave plate.
abstract: We present a method to fabricate a radially and azimuthally polarized light converter by deploying a patterned liquid crystal (LC) quarter-wave plates (QWP). The patterned QWP has been fabricated by providing the axially symmetric alignment to the LC layer by mean of photo-alignment. When the left handed circularly (LHC) or right handed circularly (RHC) polarized light passes through these patterned QWPs, the emergent light becomes radially or azimuthally polarized. Moreover, the proposed polarization converters are characterized by the fast response time, thus could find application in various fast photonic devices.
authors.affiliation: Center for Display Research, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Abhishek Kumar
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: Wang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chigrinov
authors.forename: Hoi Sing
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Kwok
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*