Light-induced reorganization in self-assembled liquid crystal gels: Electrically switchable diffraction gratings

Liquid crystals (LCs) are promising materials due to their large birefringence change induced by an electric field. Among the known approaches, holographically recorded gratings in polymer-disperesed liquid crystals (PDLCs) areprobably the most interesting system, for which a photopolymerization-induced segregationofthe polymer from the LC droplets is responsible of the grating formation. This paper reports that self-assembled LC gels can form electrically switchable volume gratings without the use of patterned electrodes, as a ressult of a light-induced structural reorganization process in this type of materials.