Polarization-independent and electronically tunable Fabry-Perot etalons with cross-orthogonal liquid-crystal layers

A novel structure of a polarization-independent and electronically tunable Fabry-Perot interferometer is proposed. It consists of double layers of homogeneously aligned liquid-crystal films with an orthogonal buffing direction. Both theoretical and experimental results show that a pure resonant wavelength with excellent polarization-independent properties, was obtained. Our devices demonstrate power fluctuations of less than 0.5 dB and extinction ratios of up to 7 dB. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.