Liquid crystal polymer and ferroelectric liquid crystal depolarizers with robustness and fast switching based on a single-step exposure system

We propose a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) depolarizer and deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (DHFLC) depolarizer based on single-exposure photoalignment technology. In this design, the liquid crystal depolarizers are generated with random orientation of different microregions by a single-step exposure system based on a spatial light modulator. For the LCP depolarizer, the polarization degree of the linearly polarized light with different sizes in any direction after passing through the depolarizer is below 2.2% and it is robust to the environment. For the DHFLC depolarizer, the response time can be 110us and the polarization degree under the same experimental setup is less than 4.2%. Moreover, this DHFLC depolarizer can fit with broadband incident light scenario if several narrowband lights are inputted time sequentially. They both can work well with less requirement on the diameter of the incident beam. (c) 2025 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement