Light-guided spectral sculpting in chiral azobenzene-doped cholesteric liquid crystals for reconfigurable narrowband unpolarized light sources.

ABSTRACT: Precise manipulation of Bragg reflection in cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) is essential for advancing reconfigurable optics. However, existing photo-responsive material-doped CLC technologies that rely on single-wavelength photoisomerization encounter several challenges, including slow response times, limited tunability, inadequate spatial control, and instability caused by pitch variations due to diffusion. Here, we present a robust dual-wavelength photoisomerization method to simultaneously achieve trans-to-cis and cis-to-trans photoisomerization of chiral azobenzene-doped CLCs, which enables broadband, reversible, and spatially addressable control over the Bragg reflection spectrum. By employing counterpropagating laser beams at 405 nm and 532 nm, we prec

SUBMITTER: Selvaraj P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12717891 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature