Isothiocyanato-Tolanes Based High Birefringence and Fast Response Time Mixtures for Photonic Applications Sebastian Gauza Chien-Hui Wen Yang Zhao Shin-Tson Wu College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA Anna Zi  olek Roman Dabrowski Institute of Chemistry, Military University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland We have developed some high birefringence (Dn  0.3 at k ¼ 633 nm) and relatively low viscosity nematic mixtures using isothiocyanato tolanes. These mixtures exhi- bit a high figure-of-merit (FoM) which is desirable for reducing the device response time. Using such a high FoM liquid crystal mixture in a 2-lm homogeneous cell, we demonstrate a 1p phase modulator at k ¼ 633 nm with submillisecond response time. Keywords: high birefringence; nematic liquid crystals; photonic applications; response time 1. INTRODUCTION Almost all the liquid crystal (LC) devices, such as display panels, spatial light modulators, and optical phased arrays for laser beam steering require a fast response time [1]. In order to achieve fast response time, low rotational viscosity LC mixtures are preferred This work is supported by DARPA Bio-Optics Synthetic Systems program under Contract No. W911NF04C0048, and NATO Programme Security Through Science, Collaborative Linkage Grant No. CBP.EAP.CLG 981323. Address correspondence to Sebastian Gauza, College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA. E-mail: swu@mail.ucf.edu Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst., Vol. 453, pp. 215–226, 2006 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1542-1406 print=1563-5287 online DOI: 10.1080/15421400600653993 215