Directed self-assembly of soft 3D photonic crystals for holograms with omnidirectional circular-polarization selectivity
Seong‐Yong Cho, Misaki Takahashi, Jun‐ichi Fukuda, Hiroyuki Yoshida, Masanori Ozaki
Abstract
Abstract Controlling the crystallographic orientation of 3D photonic crystals is important as it determines the behavior of light propagating through the device. Blue phases self-assemble into unique soft 3D photonic crystals with chiral structures for circular-polarization selectivity, but it has remained a challenge to control its 3D orientation. Here, we show that the orientation of blue phases can be precisely controlled to follow a predefined pattern imprinted on a substrate by exploiting field-induced phase transitions. Obtaining the blue phase through the field-induced chiral nematic phase and tetragonal blue phase X results in a highly oriented blue phase I with the crystallographic [001] direction aligned along the surface anchoring. Our approach is applied to fabricating a Bragg-Berry hologram with omnidirectional circular-polarization selectivity, where the hologram is visible only for one circular-polarization under all incident angles. Such devices are difficult to fabricate using conventional optical materials, thereby demonstrating the potential of self-organizing soft matter for photonics.