Effect of chiral dopant and nanoparticles on liquid crystal based microlenses

Microlenses apply to optical devices such as biomimetic optical systems, optical fiber switches, light deflection devices, solar concentrators, etc. [1,2]. Piotr et al.[1] demonstrated and characterized chiral nematic liquid crystal (LC) films suspended in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) grids that form converging spherical microlenses when immersed in water. Here we report on the tunability of the focal length of the TEM grids suspended 4-cyano-4-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) microlenses by adding different concentrations chiral dopant CD1 (ZLI 811) and mixing chiral nanoparticles with 5CB to detect various sources of chirality and make various shapes of microlenses with tunable focal lengths. Additionally, the effects of chiral dopants on the hybrid alignment of LC microlenses is also presented.

Reference
[1] Piotr Popov, Lawrence W. Honaker, Mona Mirheydari, Elizabeth K. Mann & Antal Jákli. Chiral nematic liquid crystal microlenses. Sci. Rep. 1603 (2017)
[2] Yun-Hsing Fan & Hongwen et al. Liquid Crystal Microlens Arrays With Switchable Positive and Negative Focal Lengths. J. Display Technol. 1(1):151- 156 (2005)