Liquid-crystal-enabled active plasmonics: A review

Abstract

Liquid crystals are a promising candidate for development of active plasmonics due to their large birefringence, low driving threshold, and versatile driving methods. We review recent progress on the interdisciplinary research field of liquid crystal based plasmonics. The research scope of this field is to build the next generation of reconfigurable plasmonic devices by combining liquid crystals with plasmonic nanostructures. Various active plasmonic devices, such as switches, modulators, color filters, absorbers, have been demonstrated. This review is structured to cover active plasmonic devices from two aspects: functionalities and driven methods. We hope this review would provide basic knowledge for a new researcher to get familiar with the field, and serve as a reference for experienced researchers to keep up the current research trends. © 2014 by the authors.