Electrically Driven Diffraction Grating Designed for Visible-Wavelength Region

We report on an electrically driven diffraction grating designed for visible light, where the refractive index of a liquid crystal (LC) was modulated periodically at an interval of 700 nm by applying an external dc bias to a metallic nanograting (NG). The LC-NG structure exhibited a maximum refractive index variation (Δ
n
) of 0.088 and a diffraction efficiency (η) change of 0%-16% with a large diffraction angle of 64° for incident light of 633-nm wavelength. This approach, with the help of faster electronics, provides an opportunity of developing active holograms for real 3-D displays.