ABSTRACT In a planar dielectric waveguide, weak confinement of a propagating mode in a high index core leads to a measurable evanescent interaction with the cladding. In this work, we study the effect of a reorientable anisotropic cladding on the behaviour of Transverse Electric (TE) and Transverse Magnetic (TM) mode polarisations using a liquid crystal (LC)-clad waveguide architecture. The polarised evanescent field of a guided mode interacts with a voltage-tunable birefringent LC cladding to deflect an out-coupled beam. Experimental measurements are coupled with a theoretical framework and show good consistency with simulation results. We isolate the effect of mode confinement by changing the thickness of the high index core. Interactions between the LC index ellipsoid and the mode polarisation are probed by changing the initial alignment of the LC. Finally, we examine the difference in deflection between TE and TM modes, which incorporates both a change in mode confinement and a difference in LC index components. Graphical abstract

中文翻译：

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在液晶包覆平面波导中传播横向电模式和横向磁模式

摘要 在平面介质波导中，高折射率纤芯中传播模式的弱限制导致与包层的可测量消逝相互作用。在这项工作中，我们使用液晶 (LC) 包层波导架构研究了可重新定向的各向异性包层对横向电 (TE) 和横向磁 (TM) 模式极化行为的影响。导模的偏振渐逝场与电压可调的双折射 LC 包层相互作用，以偏转外耦合光束。实验测量与理论框架相结合，并显示出与模拟结果的良好一致性。我们通过改变高指数纤芯的厚度来隔离模式限制的影响。通过改变 LC 的初始对准来探测 LC 折射率椭球和模式偏振之间的相互作用。最后，我们检查了 TE 和 TM 模式之间偏转的差异，其中包括模式限制的变化和 LC 指数分量的差异。图形概要