Planar polar liquid crystalline alignment in nanostructured porous silicon one-dimensional photonic crystals

The ability of liquid crystals (LCs) to flow and fill nanopores assists in using them for infiltration into porous nanophotonic structures such as nanostructured porous silicon (nanoPS). The reflectivity spectra at normal incidence from periodic nanostructured nanoPS filters infiltrated with nematic LC is found to exhibit polarization dependence. This is experimental evidence that the LC molecules in the nanoPS matrix are aligned such that an effective anisotropy exists parallel to the substrate plane. From the theoretical fit the preferred configuration was found to be the planar-polar geometry which is shown to be biaxial.