Low-Voltage Tuning in a Nanoparticle/Liquid Crystal Photonic Structure

In this study, we propose the fabrication and characterization of nanoparticle based multilayer photonic crystals infiltrated with a nematic liquid crystal. We show a very simple infiltration of the liquid crystal in the porous structure, controlled by monitoring the photonic band gap during the infiltration process. Tunability with electric field (by aligning the liquid crystal director) has been observed at very low applied voltage, with a blue shift of the photonic band gap of 8 nm at only 8 V. The presented results could be very interesting for realization of low cost and portable switching devices for high density integrated optics.