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Reflective mode of deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystal cells for sensing applications |
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| Authors: | Zourab Brodzeli Andrew Michie Qi Guo Evgeny P Pozhidaev Vladimir Chigrinov |
| Institution: | 1. School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW, Sydney, 2052, NSW, Australia;2. Smart Digital Optics, Sydney, Australia;3. CDR, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong;4. P.N. Lebedev Physics Institute of Russian Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 53, 119991, Moscow, Russia |
| Abstract: | We present a detailed theoretical and experimental study of the reflectance response of a deformed-helix ferroelectric (DHF) liquid crystal (LC) cell to an applied voltage under cross-polarisers. Using a model based on the effective dielectric tensor approximation, we derive simple analytical formulas to design a LC cell with maximum modulation depth and optimal linearity of the electro-optical response intensity versus the electric field. Our experimental results show that the cell works at frequencies up to 10 kHz and exhibits excellent linearity, with a total harmonic distortion as low as ?70 dB. These findings suggest that DHF-LCs can be exploited to develop simple and accurate optical sensors. |
| Keywords: | ferroelectric liquid crystals reflective mode sensing effective dielectric tensor |