Polarization gratings and electro-optics of deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystals

Abstract

Electro-optical properties of deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (DHFLC) cells are studied by using a general theoretical approach to polarization gratings in which the transmission and reflection matrices of diffraction orders are explicitly related to the evolution operator of equations for the Floquet harmonics. DHFLC cells with a subwavelength pitch are found to be optically equivalent to uniformly anisotropic biaxial layers. We calculate the transmittance as a function of the electric field and compare the results with the experimental data. The theoretical and experimental results are found to be in good agreement.