Microsecond electro-optic switching in the nematic phase of a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal

Nematic liquid crystals exhibit nanosecond electro-optic response to an applied electric field which modifies the degree of orientational order without realigning the molecular orientation. However, this nanosecond electrically modified order parameter (NEMOP) effect requires high driving fields, on the order of 10⁸ V/m for a modest birefringence change of 0.01. In this work, we demonstrate that a nematic phase of the recently discovered ferroelectric nematic materials exhibits a robust and fast electro-optic response. Namely, a relatively weak field of 2 × 10⁷ V/m changes the birefringence by ≈ 0.04 with field-on and-off times around 1 μs. This microsecond electrically modified order parameter (MEMOP) effect shows a greatly improved figure of merit when compared to other electro-optical switching modes in liquid crystals, including the conventional Frederiks effect, and has a potential for applications in fast electro-optical devices such as phase modulators, optical shutters, displays, and beam steerers.