Erasable thin-film optical diode based on a photoresponsive liquid crystal polymer

We report a thin-film optical diode written into thin films of a liquid-crystalline polymer (LCP), which is based on the photoinduced LC-to-isotropic phase transition of LCPs. The interference pattern between a collimated and a focused UV laser beam is imprinted as chirped volume-phase gratings in photoresponsive LCP films and no further processing steps like development or liftoff are required for the fabrication. The resultant thin-film device not only possesses the fundamental functions of an optical lens for laser beam focusing, but also shows diode effects with the focusing/defocusing function dependent on the direction of light incidence and orientation of the device. Furthermore, this photonic thin-film lens exhibits a spatially tunable spectroscopic response, revealing a unique physics of secondary excitations of resonance modes of the single-layer LCP waveguide grating structures. This reveals the mechanisms for the focusing/defocusing of laser beams by chirped grating structures. Erasability and reconstructibility of the photoresponsive LCPs guarantee rewritability of the thin-film diode lens.