The Study of a Novel Optical Communication Device

Abstract

A novel optical communication device is investigated in this paper. The device is a kind of optical switch. The intensity of emergent light is tunable continuously by introducing liquid crystal technique. Holographic technique is used to fabricate this optical device. According to optical theories and through many experiments, the ideal optical switching device can be obtained when the photosensitive monomers are mixed together with liquid crystal with certain weight ratio. The emergent light intensity of liquid crystal grating can be modulated by electric field because of the electric control characteristics of liquid crystal. The output light is only 5% of the incident light when the electric field is more than 15V. Besides, the liquid crystal also has the advantages of large electro-optic coefficient, fast response speed and so on. Consequently, the liquid crystal grating has immense potential productivity in passive optical communication device such as optical switching and variable optical attenuator.