Effect of Phase Retardation on Defect‐Mode Lasing in Polymeric Cholesteric Liquid Crystals

• DOI: 10.1002/adma.200306360
• Publication Date: 2004-05-19T08:00:42Z
• Authors: M. H. Song; B. Park; K.‐C. Shin; T. Ohta; Y. Tsunoda; H. Hoshi; Y. Takanishi; K. Ishikawa; J. Watanabe; S. Nishimura; T. Toyooka; Z. Zhu; T. M. Swager; H. Takezoe
• Keywords: ALIGNMENT; SPONTANEOUS EMISSION; LASER; FREE-VOLUME; 01 natural sciences; BAND; 0104 chemical sciences

Lasing via a phase retardation defect modeis reported for the first time. The Figure shows the far‐field pattern of laser emission realized by inserting an anisotropic nematic liquid crystal (LC) defect layer between polymer cholesteric LC layers. The system mimics the cuticle ofPlusiotis resplendens, a beetle, using the birefringence of the anisotropic layer to achieve reflectance greater than the 50 % provided by simple cholesteric LC photonic bandgaps.