Directed self-assembly of soft 3D photonic crystals for holograms with omnidirectional circular-polarization selectivity

Abstract

Controlling the crystallographic orientation of 3D photonic crystals is important as it determines the behavior of light propagating through the device. Blue phases self-assemble into unique soft 3D photonic crystals with chiral structures for circular-polarization selectivity, but it has remained a challenge to control its 3D orientation. Here, we show that the orientation of blue phases can be precisely controlled to follow a predefined pattern imprinted on a substrate by exploiting field-induced phase transitions. Obtaining the blue phase through the field-induced chiral nematic phase and tetragonal blue phase X results in a highly oriented blue phase I with the crystallographic [001] direction aligned along the surface anchoring. Our approach is applied to fabricating a Bragg-Berry hologram with omnidirectional circular-polarization selectivity, where the hologram is visible only for one circular-polarization under all incident angles. Such devices are difficult to fabricate using conventional optical materials, thereby demonstrating the potential of self-organizing soft matter for photonics. Controlling the alignment of blue phase liquid crystals is challenging. Here, electric-field induced phase transitions are exploited to control the crystal orientation of blue phase I, and applied to the fabrication of holograms with omnidirectional circular-polarization selectivity.