Liquid-crystal devices are a promising cheap alternative for terahertz light modulation, albeit they suffer from problems associated with thick cells. Here we describe a few-micron-thick polarization-independent nematic liquid-crystal metamaterial device displaying terahertz reflectance modulation depths above 23 dB, millisecond response times, low operating voltages, and a spectral tuning of more than 15%. The dramatic performance improvement is based on invoking critical coupling with external fields, which rests on a suitable choice of resonator geometry. We analyze the coupling mechanism to conclude that perfect absorption can be reached with a wide range of parameters and liquid-crystal materials. The proposed device performance, microscopic details, and the nematic molecule switching dynamics are evaluated with the use of a rigorous tensorial formulation of the Landau–de Gennes theory and shown to be robust to small parameter deviations.

In this paper we review the state of the art in the field of liquid-crystal tunable guided-wave photonic devices, a unique type of fill-once, molecular-level actuated, optofluidic systems. These have recently attracted significant research interest as potential candidates for low-cost, highly functional photonic elements. We cover a full range of structures, which span from micromachined liquid-crystal on silicon devices to periodic structures and liquid-crystal infiltrated photonic crystal fibers, with focus on key-applications for photonics. Various approaches on the control of the LC molecular orientation are assessed, including electro-, thermo- and all-optical switching. Special attention is paid to practical issues regarding liquid-crystal infiltration, molecular alignment and actuation, low-power operation, as well as their integrability in chip-scale or fiber-based devices.

An adaptive-focus lens is a device that is capable of tuning its focal length by means of an external stimulus. Numerous techniques for the demonstration of such devices have been reported thus far. Moving beyond traditional solutions, several new approaches have been proposed in recent years based on the use of liquid crystals, which can have a great impact in emerging applications. This work focuses on the recent advances in liquid crystal lenses with diameters larger than 1 mm. Recent demonstrations and their performance characteristics are reviewed, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the reported technologies and identifying the challenges and future prospects in the active research field of adaptive-focus liquid crystal (LC) lenses.

In this work, a novel all-dielectric metasurface made of arrayed circular slots etched in a silicon layer is proposed and theoretically investigated. The structure is designed to support both Mie-type multipolar resonances and symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum (BIC). Specifically, the metasurface consists of interrupted circular slots, following the paradigm of complementary split-ring resonators. This configuration allows both silicon-on-glass and free-standing metasurfaces and the arc length of the split-rings provides an extra tuning parameter. The nature of both BIC and non-BIC resonances supported by the metasurface is investigated by employing the Cartesian multipole decomposition technique. Thanks to the non-radiating nature of the quasi-BIC resonance, extremely high Q-factor responses are calculated, both by fitting the simulated transmittance spectra to an extended Fano model and by an eigenfrequency analysis. Furthermore, the effect of optical losses in silicon on quenching the achievable Q-factor values is discussed. The metasurface features a simple bulk geometry and sub-wavelength dimensions. This novel device, its high Q-factors, and strong energy confinement open new avenues of research on light-matter interactions in view of new applications in non-linear devices, biological sensors, and optical communications.

We provide a critical overview of recent advances in all-dielectric, strongly resonant and gradient metasurfaces, as their performance is pushed to the extreme in view of emerging flat-optics applications.