Submicrosecond electro-optical switching of one-dimensional soft photonic crystals

Soft photonic crystals are appealing due to their self-assembly ability, wide tunability, and multistimuli-responsiveness. However, their response time is relatively slow, ranging from milliseconds to minutes. Here, we report submicrosecond switching of chiral liquid crystals (LCs) with 1D photonic microstructures, where electric fields modify the orientational order of molecules and quench their fluctuations, rather than altering the orientation. Thus, the adjusted refractive indices result in a fast shift of the photonic bandgap, on the order of 100 ns, which is four orders of magnitude faster than conventional electro-optic switching in cholesterics. This work offers tremendous opportunities for soft photonic applications.