1.
Opt Express
; 17(13): 10599-605, 2009 Jun 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19550455
ABSTRACT
Optical transmission measurements were made on 98% porosity silica aerogel samples under various degrees of uniaxial strain. Uniaxially compressed aerogels exhibit large birefringence, proportional to the amount of compression, up to the 15% strain studied. The birefringence is mostly reversible and reproducible through multiple compression-decompression cycles. Our study demonstrates that uniaxially strained high porosity aerogels can be used as tunable waveplates in a broad spectral range.