Prof. Dr. Kristiaan Neyts (U Ghent): 3D liquid crystal structures determined by surface alignment

Nematic Liquid Crystals (LC) are soft materials that easily respond to external influences. Thanks to the liquid state, they can self-organize and find the state with minimal elastic energy. By defining nanoscale patterned alignment at the surface of two substrates, it is possible to create complex 3D structures in the enclosed liquid crystal [1]. The patterning is realized by illuminating a photosensitive layer with a structured laser beam, either by interference between two coherent laser beams [2,3], or by projecting the light reflected from the pixels of a spatial light modulator onto the substrate [4]. In the presentation experimental results and numerical simulations will be discussed. Using chiral liquid crystal with photonic band gap in the visible light, this approach can be used to obtain partially transparent reflectors for augmented reality devices [5].
[1] I. Nys et al., Adv. Opt. Mater. (2018), 1800070
[2] I. Nys et al., Soft Matter 11 (2015) 7802
[3] S. Liu et al., Adv. Opt. Mater., accepted
[4] B. Berteloot, et al, Soft Matter 16 (2020) 4999
[5] I. Nys et al., Adv. Opt. Mater. 7 (2019) 1901364