Dynamically adjustable photonic crystal waveguide and beam splitter based on the nematic liquid crystal

We propose a photonic crystal waveguide structure with an adjustable transmission efficiency characteristic. The liquid crystal components are placed in the inclined channel between the two horizontal channels of the Z-shaped waveguide in the photonic crystal structure. The different transmission efficiency of the photonic crystal waveguide can be obtained by applying a voltage to liquid crystal components of different positions. Based on the proposed photonic crystal waveguide structure, we design a 1*4 photonic crystal beam splitter. The finite-element method is used to analyze the transmission efficiency. The results show that: by applying a voltage to liquid crystal components of the light output channel, the selection of the light output port can be realized; by applying a voltage to a single liquid crystal component at different positions in the beam splitting channel, the light splitting ratio of the output port can be adjusted, and the high transmission efficiency of the system can be ensured. The effective control of photonic crystal waveguides is helpful to the design of photonic devices with superior performance and diverse functions, which is of great significance to the development of photonic devices.