Liquid Crystals in Quantum Optics: Current Experiments, Applications and Future Prospects

A review will be presented on using liquid crystal properties of molecular alignment and self-assembly into photonic bandgap structures in quantum and nano-photonics. Advances in transparent planar optics using modulation of the geometrical (Pancharatnam-Berry) phase will be outlined. The author’s results on single-photon sources with definite polarizations and collaborative research on using liquid crystals for modeling quantum mechanical tunneling phenomena will be overviewed. Future prospects of patterned liquid crystals and topological defects in these materials will be discussed.