title: Soft periodic microstructures containing liquid crystals.
abstract: An empty polymeric structure has been realized by combining a high precision level optical holographic setup and a selective microfluidic etching process. The distinctive features of the realized periodic microstructure enabled aligning several kinds of liquid crystal (LC) compounds, without the need of any kind of surface chemistry or functionalization. In particular, it has been possible to exploit light sensitive LCs for the fabrication of all-optical devices, cholesteric and ferroelectric LCs for ultrafast electro-optical switches, and a common LC for a two-dimensional periodic structure with high anisotropy. All-optical and electro-optical experiments, performed for investigating the samples in terms of switching voltages and response times, confirm good performances of the realized devices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Centre of Excellence for the Study of Innovative Functional Materials, University of Calabria, CNR-IPCF UOS Cosenza, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy. luciano.desio@fis.unical.it
authors.forename: Luciano
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: De Sio
authors.forename: Sameh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ferjani
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Strangi
authors.forename: Cesare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Umeton
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bartolino
mesh_terms: D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D015394:Molecular Structure