Ricerc@Sapienza

In this paper, we present our studies on electrical and thermal tuning of light propagation in waveguide channels, made for the scope from a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate infiltrated with nematic liquid crystal (LC). We demonstrated, via numerical simulations, the changes of the waveguide optical parameters when solicited by temperature changes or electric fields.

We present optoelectronic tunable and switchable devices for integrated optics based on easy-to-build optical waveguides. The devices take advantage of the spontaneous homeotropically alignment of liquid crystals (LC) molecules to the surface of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channel (LC:PDMS). This behaviour was investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations, which allowed to evaluate the molecular organization and ordering inside the cell.

In this paper, studies are presented on electrical tuning of optical channels formed by the PDMS-based waveguides infiltrated with a liquid crystalline material. In particular, preliminary results are demonstrated of numerical simulations demonstrating changes in optical parameters of the waveguide channels when influenced by electric field applied via flat and IPS electrodes in order to fabricate photonic switches based on optical directional couplers. The first experimental trials of sputtering the ITO layer on PDMS substrate are also shown.