Abstract: | Nematic liquid crystal droplets dispersed in a thermoplastic matrix with a built-in d.c. electric field exhibit a quasi-linear response to an electric field. In this work we show a device characterized by a large light modulation. The device can store fields up to several V µm -1 and operates well from d.c. to several kHz. In addition, we found that the experimental results are in agreement with a simple theoretical model for light scattering by a dispersion of liquid crystal droplets. This device allows us to overcome possible drawbacks, due to a reduced light modulation, in applications where polarity detection is required. |