The ElectroOptical Characteristics of HPDLC.pdf

Electro-optical characteristics of holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal gratings doped with nanosilver Menghua Zhang, Jihong Zheng*, Kun Gui, Kangni Wang, Caihong Guo, Xiaopeng Wei, and Songlin Zhuang Engineering Research Center of Optical Instrument and System, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Optical System, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, No. 516 JunGong Road, Shanghai 200093, China *Corresponding author: jihongzheng@ Received 8 July 2013; revised 13 September 2013; accepted 14 September 2013; posted 1 October 2013 (Doc. ID 193403); published 21 October 2013 We report on the synthesis and characteristics of a holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal (H-PDLC) switchable grating based on nano-Ag particles. The influence of doping different concentra- tions of nano-Ag on the diffraction efficiency, driving voltage, and response time of the H-PDLC grating is investigated. The best grating characteristics were achieved with 0.05% nano-Ag doping. Calculated and experimental results reveal that the improvement of the characteristics is likely due to the surface plasmon effect of nano-Ag. © 2013 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: (050.1950) Diffraction gratings; (160.3710) Liquid crystals; (160.4236) Nanomaterials; (240.6680) Surface plasmons. /10.1364/AO.52.007411 1. Introduction such as the mass ratio of the materials, the intensity In recent years, electrically switchable hologr