Development of Liquid Crystal Materials for Directed Energy Control

Boulder Nonlinear Systems has been developing liquid-crystal based tunable filters for a decade. The success of these devices ultimately rests in the capabilities of the liquid crystal material. Phase II research will concentrate on the development ofhigh-speed, analog switching ferroelectric liquid crystal materials and their application in agile tunable notch filters. Toward this end, BNS will team will researchers at the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University. FLC-based tunable filtersoffer low-power, continuous tuning, excellent image quality and aperture, rapid response speeds and large field-of-view. BNS will produce tunable filter in the visible, and will pursue extension of the technology into the mid-IR band.