Smart Millimeter-Wave Devices Using Liquid Crystal

Smart liquid crystal (LC) millimeter-wave (MMW) electronic devices are demonstrated using the electrically-controllable permittivity through LC directors\u27 reorientation. In this paper, we review the LC classes and its important physical properties for the proposed applications. Some commercially available LCs exhibit a relatively large birefringence (Δn∼0.2) in MMW bands and, therefore, are useful for millimeter wave devices. A nonradiative dielectric waveguide using LC is proposed and characterized using numerical simulations. The simulation results show that the LC waveguide is promising for future MMW technologies