Xabier Quintana Arregui
Biography:
Xabier Quintana is professor at the polytecnic university of Madrid. He has worked at the ETSI of Telecommunications of the UPM since 1993. His research interest has focused on Guided Optical Communications (anisotropic waveguides, unconventional fibers), Free Space Optical Communications (atmospheric transmission, space), Photonic Applications of Liquid Crystals (displays, micro-displays, phase devices, tunable filters, modal lenses) and organic electronics (OLEDs).
He is co-author of more than 50 international publications in ranked scientific journals. He has made more than 150 communications to international conferences. He is also co-author of 8 patents and he has directed 7 Doctoral Thesis, most of them in liquid crystal technology.
He has developed graduate and postgraduate teaching activities, mainly at the Higher Polytechnic School of the Carlos III University of Madrid (1997-98) and since then at the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineers of the UPM and at the Higher Technical School of Civil Engineers of the UPM (Graduate in Materials Engineering). He has taught about 10 undergraduate subjects of different Study Plans and as many postgraduate degrees in Doctorate and Masters. He is co-author of several Handbooks of Laboratory Practices. He has participated in several educational innovation projects.
He has given numerous lectures, courses and seminars, mainly centered on optical communications and liquid crystal devices.
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Title of the communication:
Manufacturing Liquid Crystal Devices in a Research Laboratory
About this tutorial session:
The fabrication of liquid crystals in a research laboratory is always challenging at first. There are small "tricks" that greatly facilitate the process and are not usually described in scientific articles. This tutorial aims at making the task easier for students starting out in this demanding experimental world, so they can focus more on their research, without wasting time figuring out procedures that might be obvious to a senior researcher.
In this tutorial, we intend to show in detail all the steps followed in our laboratory for the fabrication of liquid crystal devices. Starting with a general description of the basic fabrication procedure of a liquid crystal cell, we will describe some processes carried out in the fabrication of advanced devices, such as tunable lenses or microwave devices, with special emphasis on photoalignment, selective polyimide deposition, selective spacer deposition, spacer growth by photolithography, laser ablation of the electrode, etc.