Terahertz birefringence anisotropy and relaxation effects in polymer-dispersed liquid crystal doped with gold nanoparticles

Terahertz (THz) birefringence anisotropy of the polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) doped with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) is investigated by using terahertz time domain polarization spectroscopy. Controlled by the electric field, the change rate of refractive index for PDLC doped with Au NPs is 0.91% V −1 as the voltage increases, smaller than the pure PDLC, which indicates that the response of the PDLC doped with Au NPs to electric field is more uniform than that of pure PDLC. Therefore, the PDLC doped with Au NPs is more suitable for tunable phase shifters. Furthermore, we found that under the high-frequency alternating electric field, the anisotropic polarization effect of PDLC will disappear to this electric field, namely polarization relaxation phenomenon. However, the results show that the PDLC doped with Au NPs can respond to an electric field with higher alternating frequencies, and the relaxation frequency of PDLC with an Au NPs concentration of 0.2 wt% was improved over two times compared with the pure PDLC and four times higher than that of the precursor mixture without ultraviolet radiation. This work has the significance for the potential applications of tunable THz liquid crystal phase and polarization devices, providing a more uniform and faster relaxation response to the operating electric field.