Electrically tunable liquid-crystal metasurfaces with patterned birefringence and dichroism
Abstract
Light propagation through artificially patterned anisotropic materials, such as dielectric metasurfaces, enables precise control of the spatio-vectorial properties of optical fields using highly transparent, thin, and flat optical elements. Liquid-crystal cells are a common realization of such devices. Optical losses are typically assumed to be polarization-independent and are therefore often overlooked in modeling these systems. In this work, we introduce electrically tunable liquid-crystal metasurfaces with patterned birefringence and dichroism, achieved by incorporating dichroic dye molecules into the liquid-crystal mixture. These dye molecules align with the liquid crystal, effectively coupling birefringence and dichroism effects. The behavior of these metasurfaces is described using non-unitary Jones matrices, validated through polarimetric measurements. In the case of devices that are patterned to form polarization gratings, we also characterize the diffraction efficiency as a function of the dichroism and birefringence parameters, which can be tuned jointly by applying an electric field across the cell. This study not only introduces a new class of optical components but also deepens our understanding of light propagation through anisotropic materials, where dichroism can naturally arise from bulk material properties or from reflection and transmission laws at their interfaces.
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BibTeX
@article{savarese2026electrically,
title = {{Electrically tunable liquid-crystal metasurfaces with patterned birefringence and dichroism}},
author = {Paola Savarese and Sarvesh Bansal and Maria Gorizia Ammendola and Raouf Barboza and Marcella Salvatore and Stefano Luigi Oscurato and Bruno Piccirillo and Francesco Di Colandrea and Lorenzo Marrucci and Filippo Cardano},
journal = {APL Photonics},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1063/5.0261491},
eprint = {2501.17680},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05789708v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Electrically tunable liquid-crystal metasurfaces with patterned birefringence and dichroism
AU - Paola Savarese
AU - Sarvesh Bansal
AU - Maria Gorizia Ammendola
AU - Raouf Barboza
AU - Marcella Salvatore
AU - Stefano Luigi Oscurato
AU - Bruno Piccirillo
AU - Francesco Di Colandrea
AU - Lorenzo Marrucci
AU - Filippo Cardano
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
JO - APL Photonics
DO - 10.1063/5.0261491
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05789708v1
AB - Light propagation through artificially patterned anisotropic materials, such as dielectric metasurfaces, enables precise control of the spatio-vectorial properties of optical fields using highly transparent, thin, and flat optical elements. Liquid-crystal cells are a common realization of such devices. Optical losses are typically assumed to be polarization-independent and are therefore often overlooked in modeling these systems. In this work, we introduce electrically tunable liquid-crystal metasurfaces with patterned birefringence and dichroism, achieved by incorporating dichroic dye molecules into the liquid-crystal mixture. These dye molecules align with the liquid crystal, effectively coupling birefringence and dichroism effects. The behavior of these metasurfaces is described using non-unitary Jones matrices, validated through polarimetric measurements. In the case of devices that are patterned to form polarization gratings, we also characterize the diffraction efficiency as a function of the dichroism and birefringence parameters, which can be tuned jointly by applying an electric field across the cell. This study not only introduces a new class of optical components but also deepens our understanding of light propagation through anisotropic materials, where dichroism can naturally arise from bulk material properties or from reflection and transmission laws at their interfaces.
SN - 2378-0967
ER -