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Novel Techniques for Observing Structural Dynamics of Photoresponsive Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 29, 2018
Photonic defect modes of cholesteric liquid crystals
1Department of Physics, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Kusong-dong 373-1, Yusong-gu, Taejon, Korea 305-701.
Abstract:
We investigate defect modes of cholesteric liquid crystals as photonic band gap materials. For normal incidence of light, cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit total reflection for the circular polarization with the same handedness as that of cholesteric helix. However, the other orthogonal component is completely transmitted. When we replace a thin layer of liquid crystal by an isotropic material as a defect, defect modes are induced for both polarizations of incident light. We analyze the wavelength and reflectivity of the defect modes in terms of the refractive index of defect layer.
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