Photonic integration based on liquid crystals for low driving voltage optical switches
This paper reports on optical waveguides using liquid crystals (LC) as core. Such optical waveguides have the advantage to be controlled by a low voltage electric field or by using an optical beam by exploiting the highly efficient electro-optic or nonlinear optical effects, respectively. Optical switches based on LC embedded in silicon grooves have been reported with on–off contrast over 40 dB by applying about 8 V.