Electrically Tunable Hydrogen-Bonded Liquid Crystal Phase Control Device

Terahertz waves have attracted much attention mainly because of their potential in imaging, security checking, nondestructive testing, and information and communication technologies. In the past few years, there has been an extensive effort to investigate terahertz wave control devices. Liquid crystal (LC) devices are strong candidates for high-performance terahertz wave control devices because of their controllability at low drive voltages and their low power consumption. In this study, we fabricated an electrically tunable phase control device by using a hydrogen-bonded LC material. We investigated the performance of the LC phase shifter by using a far infrared continuous wave laser. We also estimated the birefringence and absorption properties of the hydrogen-bonded LC at 2.5 THz by using Jones matrix calculations. The measurements and calculation results indicated that the hydrogen-bonded LC showed no dichroism at 2.5 THz. Based on the absorption properties, we believe that it could be a strong candidate for use in future terahertz devices.