Light Reconfigurable Geometric Phase Optical Element with Multi-stable States

TL;DR

This paper introduces a light reconfigurable optical element with multiple stable states, achieved through a photoresponsive chiral liquid crystal, enabling broad and smooth diffraction efficiency tuning for advanced optical applications.

Contribution

The design leverages modulation of geometric and dynamical phases to achieve multi-stable diffraction states, a novel approach compared to previous methods.

Findings

Device exhibits broad, tunable diffraction efficiency range.

Diffraction states are memorized and switchable via light stimuli.

Potential applications include energy-efficient optical processing and anti-counterfeit holography.

Abstract

We present the design methodology of a light reconfigurable geometric phase optical element with multi-stable diffraction efficiency states, enabled by a photoresponsive self-organized chiral liquid crystal. Experimental demonstration shows the device exhibits a broad diffraction efficiency tunable range that can be smoothly modulated under alternate stimulation of ultraviolet and green lights. Distinctive to previous designs, the regulation of diffraction efficiency fundamentally stems from the modulation of geometric phase together with dynamical phase retardation, and any intermediate diffractive state is memorized. Such multi-stability facilitates applications including energy-saving all-optical signal processing in classical and quantum level, and phase hologram for anti-counterfeit.