Active optical filter adapted for a spectacle lens, the active optical filter being configured so as to filter light radiations over at least one predetermined range of wavelengths, wherein the full width at half maximum of the filtering function of the optical filter is smaller than or equal to 100 nm.

A liquid crystal device comprising a first substrate, a second substrate and a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between said first and second substrate; wherein an electrode structure is deposited on at least one of said first and second substrates, said electrode structure comprising: a first electrode layer; an insulating layer; a second electrode layer; wherein said electrode structure comprises holes extending through said second electrode layer and said insulating layer, such that said insulating layer is discontinuous, and wherein each hole is adapted to generate local fringe fields with azimuthal degenerate direction.

An optical system in one aspect of the present disclosure includes a first light source, a second light source, a first spatial optical phase modulator, a second spatial optical phase modulator, and a projector. The first spatial optical phase modulator outputs first phase-modulated light based on an input light having a first wavelength from the first light source. The second spatial optical phase modulator outputs second phase-modulated light based on input light having a second wavelength from the second light source. The projector projects the first phase-modulated light and the second phase-modulated light on a target. The first spatial optical phase modulator is a liquid crystal device including a first liquid crystal layer. The second spatial optical phase modulator is a liquid crystal device including a second liquid crystal layer. The first liquid crystal layer includes a liquid crystal material different from that of the second liquid crystal layer.

A U-shaped unit and a liquid crystal element with U-shaped coplanar electrode units provided by the invention are capable of increasing a horizontal electric field intensity in a power supply state, so that when the invention is applied to be used as a liquid crystal driving element, a required horizontal electric field intensity can be achieved with a lower driving voltage to reduce a required driving power when the liquid crystal element is used as a display screen, thereby achieving an effect of power saving.

A transparent display panel and a transparent display device are disclosed. The transparent display panel comprises a color filter substrate, an electrode layer, a blue phase liquid crystal layer configured to modulate an incident collimated natural light, and a light guide plate. The color filter substrate comprises a black matrix and pixel regions which are surrounded by the black matrix and arranged in a matrix, and each of the pixel regions on the color filter substrate is provided with a light shielding part at a central position, and an opening region surrounded by the light shielding part and the black matrix. The light guide plate is provided with a light exit region on a side close to the blue phase liquid crystal layer, the light exit region is arranged to correspond to the light shielding part in position, and in case the electrode layer does not apply a driving voltage to the blue phase liquid crystal layer, the collimated natural light which passes through the light exit region is incident on the light shielding part and is blocked by the light shielding part. The electrode layer is configured to apply the driving voltage to the blue phase liquid crystal layer to form a liquid crystal grating, and the blue phase liquid crystal receives different driving voltages at different positions in one of grating periods of the liquid crystal grating, so that the collimated natural light is diffracted by the liquid crystal grating and exits through the opening region.

When a pixel portion and a driver circuit are formed over one substrate and a counter electrode is formed over an entire surface of a counter substrate, the driver circuit may be adversely affected by an optimized voltage of the counter electrode. A semiconductor device according to the present invention has a structure in which: a liquid crystal layer is provided between a pair of substrates; one of the substrates is provided with a pixel electrode and a driver circuit; the other of the substrates is a counter substrate which is provided with two counter electrode layers in different potentials; and one of the counter electrode layers overlaps with the pixel electrode with the liquid crystal layer therebetween and the other of the counter electrode layers overlaps with the driver circuit with the liquid crystal layer therebetween. An oxide semiconductor layer is used for the driver circuit.

A tunable parametric mixer comprising a pump laser, a nonlinear waveguide, and a refractive index tuner. The pump laser is configured to generate pump photons. The nonlinear waveguide comprises a cladding and a core. The core is made of nonlinear optical material and the cladding in made of a material with a tunable index of refraction. The nonlinear waveguide is configured to convert the pump photons into signal and idler photons. The refractive index tuner is configured to change the refractive index of the cladding to dynamically tune the dispersion properties of the nonlinear waveguide in order to alter a spectral location of a gain band of the parametric mixer.

A switchable window includes an electro-optical layer of or including an anisotropic gel of polymer stabilized highly chiral liquid crystal, for example, blue phase liquid crystal, encapsulated in, for example, a mesogenic polymer inclusive shell, that forms a self-assembled, three-dimensional photonic crystal that remains electro-optically switchable under a moderate applied voltage (e.g., electric field). The liquid crystal (LC) arrangement may be achieved via a polymer assembled blue phase liquid crystal system having a substantially continuous polymer structure case surrounding well-defined discrete bodies of liquid crystal material arranged in a cellular manner These assembled structures globally connect to form a matrix. This provides for reduction of angular birefringence of highly chiral LC systems, which advantageously reduces haze in applications such as switchable windows.

Liquid crystal display (LCD) systems and related methods with pixel elements driven at different frequencies are provided. A representative LCD system includes: a plurality of pixel elements arranged in an array, each of the plurality of pixel elements having a first sub-region and a second sub-region; a low-frequency driving circuit operative to drive each of the first sub-regions; and a high-frequency driving circuit operative to drive each of the second sub-regions at a driving frequency different than a driving frequency of the low-frequency driving circuits; wherein the first sub-regions exhibit a different size than the second sub-regions.

Methods and devices for manipulating optical signals. In one example, a LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) device includes a surface bearing an anti-reflection structure. The anti-reflection structure includes i) a physical surface having a topography with features having lateral dimensions of less than 2000 nm and having an average refraction index which decreases with distance away from the surface; and ii) a configuration of the topography, averaged over lateral dimensions of greater than 2000 nm, varies with lateral position on the surface.