Mid-wave infrared beam steering based on high-efficiency liquid crystal diffractive waveplates.

We demonstrated two liquid crystal diffractive waveplates: one optimized for near-infrared (1.06 µm), and another for mid-wave infrared (MWIR, 3~5 µm). By employing a low loss liquid crystal mixture UCF-M3, whose absorption loss is below 2% in the 4~5 µm spectral region, the grating achieves over 98% diffraction efficiency in a broad MWIR range. To switch the grating, both active and passive driving methods can be considered. In our experiment, we used a polymer-stabilized twisted nematic cell as the polarization rotator for passive driving. The obtained rise time is 0.2 ms and decay time is 10 ms.