Liquid crystals possess many novel electro-and nonlinear optical properties and physical characteristics [1] such as extraordinarily large and tunable birefringence over the entire visible-infrared regime,and compatibility with almost all optoelectronic materials.Their fluid like nature allows easy incorporation of nano-particulates or infiltration into nano-structures such as photonic crystals,channel waveguides [2-4],as well as plasmonic nano-structures [4-8].As a result of the extreme sensitivity of the plasmonic resonances and dispersion to changes in the surrounding dielectric constant,the combined systems exhibit new tunable(by electric or optical fields)resonances [4-8].In this presentation,we will present a critical review of these studies and our recent work on liquid-crystals-plasmonic materials and nano-structures that combine the unique physical and optical properties of both materials to enable a new generation of reflective,transmissive,modulation and switching elements and devices.In particular,we will elaborate on nematic liquid crystal plasmonic optical modulator and tunable dual-band ?perfect? absorbers using asymmetric gold nano-disk array with an overlayer of aligned NLC.For the latter device,simulations and experimental results show the possibility of absorption efficiencies greater than 99%can be achieved for both resonance frequencies at normal incidence with a tunable range of over 700 nm obtained by varying the dimensions of the three-layer,elliptical nanodisk array.Our studies also show that these absorption bands can be tuned by changing the dielectric constant of a thin layer of NLC over the nano-disk array; the tuning can be effected by a variety of mechanisms,including electrode-free all-optical.In the case of optical tuning,our recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of sub-microseconds – nanoseconds switching speed,which is more than 1000 times faster than conventional liquid crystal electro-optics [9,10].