Abstract Composite materials containing liquid crystalline microstructures, providing fast stimuli responsive variations of birefringence at low consumption power, have great potential applications in photonics. Here, a composite material based on polymer membranes with photo-aligned nematic microstructures is proposed for the first time. For this purpose, porous polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films were covered with an azo-dye and subjected to a modified photoalignment technique to control the azimuthal orientation and anchoring strength of nematic liquid crystals (LCs) at the pore walls. Nematic internal ordering was identified using polarized optical microscopic observations assisted by theoretical simulations. The proposed approach provides spatial distribution of nematic microstructures characterized by specific internal ordering and fingerprint in near infrared spectra at an electro-optical response. These composites can be used as flexible photonic LC elements such as spatial light modulators, optical filters and lenses.

中文翻译：

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用于光子应用的具有光对准向列结构的电可切换聚合物膜

摘要 含有液晶微结构的复合材料以低功耗提供双折射的快速刺激响应变化，在光子学中具有巨大的潜在应用。在这里，首次提出了一种基于具有光取向向列微结构的聚合物膜的复合材料。为此，多孔聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯 (PET) 薄膜覆盖有偶氮染料，并采用改进的光配向技术来控制孔壁处向列液晶 (LC) 的方位角取向和锚定强度。使用由理论模拟辅助的偏振光学显微观察来识别向列内部排序。所提出的方法提供了以电光响应的近红外光谱中的特定内部排序和指纹为特征的向列微结构的空间分布。这些复合材料可用作柔性光子 LC 元件，例如空间光调制器、滤光器和透镜。