Chiral Liquid Crystals: Tilted Chiral Liquid Crystal Gratings for Efficient Large‐Angle Diffraction (Advanced Optical Materials 22/2019)

The ability to steer light with miniaturized optical components has attracted great interest for next‐generation technologies. To efficiently diffract light over large angles, Inge Nys and co‐workers (article number 1901364) have developed a flat optical component with a sub‐micrometer period. Periodic photo‐alignment at the surface is used in combination with chiral liquid crystal and results in the self‐organization of a slanted unperturbed chiral structure in the bulk. The periodic structure at the interface can be matched perfectly with the chiral period by providing an appropriate slant angle. The resulting device achieves a high efficiency for reflective diffraction over large angles and shows strong polarization‐sensitivity.