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Nanoscale 13(44), 18714 - 18725 (2021). doi:10.1039/D1NR04282C, Photonic metamaterials with properties unattainable in base materials are already beginning to revolutionize optical component design. However, their exceptional characteristics are often static, as artificially engineered into the material during the fabrication process. This limits their application for in-operando adjustable optical devices and active optics in general. Here, for a hybrid material consisting of a liquid crystal-infused nanoporous solid, we demonstrate active and dynamic control of its meta-optics by applying alternating electric fields parallel to the long axes of its cylindrical pores. First-harmonic Pockels and second-harmonic Kerr birefringence responses, strongly depending on the excitation frequency and temperature, are observed in a frequency range from 50 Hz to 50 kHz. This peculiar behavior is quantitatively traced by a Landau���De Gennes free energy analysis to an order���disorder orientational transition of the rod-like mesogens and intimately related changes in the molecular mobilities and polar anchoring at the solid walls on the single-pore, meta-atomic scale. Thus, our study provides evidence that liquid crystal-infused nanopores exhibit integrated multi-physical couplings and reversible phase changes that make them particularly promising for the design of photonic metamaterials with thermo-electrically tunable birefringence in the emerging field of space���time metamaterials aiming at full spatio-temporal control of light., Published by RSC Publ., Cambridge

This article considers the issue of the development, production, and application of nanocomposite materials in telecommunication networks for the optical and subterahertz wave ranges. The results are obtained on the base of growing the nanocomposite materials from Al2O3 membranes and KDP crystals in a saturated solution.