Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers for Sensing Applications

The paper presents our latest experimental results on the influence of temperature, an external electric field, and hydrostatic pressure on propagation properties of the photonic crystal fibers infiltrated with liquid crystals of low and medium material anisotropies. Measurand-induced shifts of the photonic bandgap wavelengths give information about the value of temperature, voltage, and pressure. Moreover, temperature-dependent positions of the photonic bandgap wavelengths in the transmission spectrum can serve to determine the thermal characteristics of the liquid crystal ordinary refractive index.