Fast switching dual-frequency nematic liquid crystal tunable filters

Melnyk, O., Jones, R., Macedo, R. , Garbovskiy, Y., Hagen, G., Glushchenko, A. V., Spendier, K. and Camley, R. E. (2021) Fast switching dual-frequency nematic liquid crystal tunable filters. ACS Photonics, 8(4), pp. 1222-1231. (doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.1c00151)

Abstract

We develop tunable optical filters with dual-frequency nematic liquid crystal optical retarders to enable fast switching between the passed wavelengths. The filters are composed of a series of two liquid crystal optical retarders. We select the specific thicknesses of the liquid crystal retarders and use individual biasing schemes to continuously tune the wavelength and bandwidth of the filter. This enables fine-tuned filter switching speeds of filter operation in the ms regime. We present theoretical predictions and experimental results for the electro-optical filter characterization as well as an example application for our filter in total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. We find that our filter switching speeds can be as short as a few ms, an order of magnitude improvement over typical mechanical filter wheel switching speeds. The quality of our fluorescence images is similar to those obtained by conventional filters.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Macedo, Dr Rair
• Authors: Melnyk, O., Jones, R., Macedo, R., Garbovskiy, Y., Hagen, G., Glushchenko, A. V., Spendier, K., and Camley, R. E.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: ACS Photonics
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• ISSN: 2330-4022
• ISSN (Online): 2330-4022
• Published Online: 06 April 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 American Chemical Society
• First Published: First published in ACS Photonics 8(4):1222–1231
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy