Increase of Competitiveness – the Purpose of Formation of Regional Industrial Policy Повышение конкурентоспособности – цель формирования региональной промышленной политики

The analysis of interrelations between an industrial production level of development in region and its competitiveness is carried out. Scientifical and practical recommendations about definition of directions of increase of competitiveness of domestic commodity producers at formation of a regional industrial policy are presented.В статье проведен анализ взаимосвязей между уровнем развития промышленного производства в регионе и его конкурентоспособностью, Представлены научно-практических рекомендаций по определению направлений повышения конкурентоспособности отечественных товаропроизводителей при формировании региональной промышленной политики

Liquid-crystal metasurfaces: Self-assembly for versatile optical functionality

Liquid crystals subjected to modulated surface alignment assemble into metasurface-type structures capable of various flat-optical functionalities, including light diffraction and focusing, deflection and splitting. Remaining in a fluid phase, they are susceptible to external stimuli, and, in particular, can be efficiently controled by low voltages. We overview the existing approaches to the design and fabrication of liquid-crystal metasurfaces, highlight their realized optical functions and discuss the applied potential in emerging photonic devices

Nematic liquid crystal alignment on subwavelength metal gratings

We have studied the alignment of a nematic liquid crystal (LC) material on aluminum subwavelength nanogratings as a function of the period, p, and the slit width to period ratio, w/p. A method, based on Fourier analysis of the transmittance spectra of the LC grating system, has been applied. We show that the gratings provide stable planar alignment only for shorter periods and narrower slits (p < 400 nm, w/p < 2/3). As these parameters increase, the homogeneous surface alignment changes to domains with different tilt angles or to spatially modulated alignment. We have also obtained a 90° twisted LC director distribution, implying sufficiently strong azimuthal LC anchoring at the grating surface

Study of the vertically aligned in-plane switching liquid crystal mode in microscale periodic electric fields

The ongoing interest in fast liquid crystal (LC) modes stimulated by display technology and new applications has motivated us to study in detail the in-plane switching (IPS) vertically aligned (VA) mode. We have studied how the decrease of the period of the interdigitated electrodes (down to sub-micrometer scale) influences the switching speed, especially the LC relaxation to the initial homeotropic state. We have found that there are two types of the relaxation: a fast relaxation caused by the surface LC sub-layer deformed in the vicinity of the electrodes and the slower relaxation of the bulk LC. The speed of the fast (surface) mode is defined by half of a period of the electrode grating, while the relaxation time of the bulk depends on the LC layer thickness and the length of the driving electric pulses. Thus, the use of the surface mode and the reduction of the electrode grating period can result in significant increase of switching speed compared to the traditional LC modes, where the bulk relaxation dominates in electrooptical response. We have studied thoroughly the conditions defining the surface mode applicability. The numerical simulations are in good agreement with experimental measurements

Non-Mechanical Multiplexed Beam-Steering Elements Based on Double-Sided Liquid Crystal Metasurfaces

We propose, optimize, fabricate and test beam-steering elements based on double-sided liquid-crystal (LC) metasurfaces allowing for diffractive and spectral multiplexing, and thus covering three different beam deflection directions each. While straightforward parallel design requires one diffractive beam-steering element per a direction determined by Bragg’s law, double-sided LC-metasurfaces are remarkably flexible and allow optimization for three operation modes at different applied voltages: zero-voltage mode with dominant +1 order red light and +2 order blue light diffraction; intermediate mode at 1.4–1.6 V voltage with dominant +1 order blue light diffraction; and transparent mode at 5 V voltage. We comprehensively study three such elements with 6, 8 and 10 micrometer periods and verify their capability of deflecting blue and red light beams with 40–70% efficiencies in nine target directions with 10 ms characteristic switching times