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Liquid Crystals and Lasers
Wan2Be writes "A new kind of glass pane that quickly switches from transparent to diffracting and back again. The change is triggered by applying an electric field, so the pane could easily be controlled by the electric signals of a computer, offering a powerful new way to steer beams of light."
LCs are very slow compared to what is nowadays the speed bits traveling along a glass fibre. I cannot see a useful way of using it directly to redirect or modulate laser light. Maybe indirectly (like in getting rid of reflections), but this technology is still slow compared to what you can do with real crystals. Those are unfortunately very delicate objects (humidity is bad, bad, bad) and pretty expensive and you cannot make large ones (but you do not need to as laser light is usually small area-wise).
So unless someone shows me a useable way to use this technology, I will put it in the box Interresting technology with no current use with Internet attached to it to make it seem more interresting than it is.
Ah, but that's just turning opaque. This stuff doesn't turn opaque, it refracts. This allows for not just blocking the light but reaiming/controlling it as well.
... without any order in the drop size and spacing, these older liquid crystal systems simply scatter light in all directions ... In our case, ... we're able to steer light in specific directions"
Very similar concept, almost identical process, but quite a difference overall.
If you bother to RTFA, it says:
"The big difference between what we do and what has been done before is that older-style glass panes contain a random distribution of drops and drop sizes
=Smidge=