Tunability of wire-grid metamaterial immersed into nematic liquid crystal

TL;DR

This paper introduces an electrically tunable hybrid metamaterial with a wire grid immersed in nematic liquid crystal, enabling significant permittivity variation across microwave and optical frequencies through voltage-controlled liquid crystal alignment.

Contribution

It presents a novel design of a hybrid metamaterial that achieves tunability of permittivity by switching liquid crystal alignment with external voltages.

Findings

Permittivity can be substantially varied via voltage control.

The effect is applicable in both microwave and optical frequency ranges.

The structure's plasma-like permittivity is tunable through liquid crystal reorientation.

Abstract

We propose electrically tunable hybrid metamaterial consisting of special wire grid immersed into nematic liquid crystal. The plasma-like permittivity of the structure can be substantially varied due to switching of the liquid crystal alignment by external voltages applied to the wires. Depending on the scale of the structure, the effect is available for both microwave and optical frequency ranges.