LC-polymer composites for the realization of passive and active opto-electronics components

Soft materials exhibit very attracting optical/mechanical/chemical/thermal properties and flexible processing techniques. Combined with holographic fabrication techniques, they can be patterned quite easily into many unique structures. In particular, photonic crystals, and photonic quasicrystals can be fabricated this way, with little technological effort. We present here few example, based on composite materials obtained from initial mixtures of polymeric and liquid crystalline materials, of passive opto-electronic components. These components are made in the form of holographic gratings and have attracting features that will be discussed. Finally, we propose a class of active components based on similar holographic design.