Electrically controlled liquid crystal plasmonic metamaterials

In this work we experimentally demonstrate high-contrast electrical modulation of the near-IR spectra of plasmonic metamaterials, hybridised with liquid crystals by exploiting volume and, for the first time, in-plane switching regimes. We also show that in the resulting hybrid liquid-crystal (LC) optical cells the metamaterial structure can replace all three essential components of a LC device, namely (i) LC-alignment layer; (ii) transparent electrode and (iii) polarizer; making the hybrid cell much more compact than the conventional LC devices and easy to integrate with plasmonic and nano-photonic circuits. The relative ease of on-demand engineering of resonant bands (i.e. colours) in plasmonic nano-structures is particularly appealing for applications in high-resolution and emerging micro-display technologies, such as near-to-eye and virtual retina displays.