Design of photonic devices in LC:PDMS technology

Photonics in conjunction to microfluidic represents a novel and interesting area of investigation since, inexpensive, flexible and reconfigurable devices, such photonic switches, multi/demulitplexers, power splitters and others, can be fabricated. The applications for these devices span from datacom to sensing and biomedical applications. Recently a new technology based on liquid crystals (LC) embedded in polydimethysiloxane (LC:PDMS) has been demonstrated suitable to fabricate photonic devices based on electro-optic waveguides built on flexible substrates for biosensing applications. An advantage of this type of devices is that the molecules of the LC, infiltrated in PDMS channels in vacuum at the temperature of 80°C, are aligned homeotropically with respect to each PDMS surface. This molecular arrangement on the PDMS surface is spontaneous and doesn’t need any alignment layer. In this paper we report the design and simulation of two examples of photonic devices based on LC: PDMS waveguide technology.