Patent ID: 8028473

Claim:
A tunable optical device comprising: two liquid crystal devices, each one of said devices having at least one layer of liquid crystal material, said layers being oriented in cross directions to handle perpendicular light polarizations, and each one of said liquid crystal devices comprising a top substrate and a bottom substrate spaced apart and filled with a liquid crystal material, said substrates each comprising an alignment layer in contact with said liquid crystal material; and an electrode structure comprising: a top electrode and a bottom electrode that are each located at an opposite side of the two liquid crystal layers; and a hole-patterned electrode and a weakly conductive material extending across an aperture of the hole-patterned electrode, the hole-patterned electrode and weakly conductive material being sandwiched between substrate surfaces of the two liquid crystal devices, the hole-patterned electrode configured to provide with the weakly conductive material an effective electrical potential structure substantially in a plane and common to the two liquid crystal layers for providing a comparable electric field spatial profile above and below said plane within each of the two liquid crystal layers.