Electrically controlled scattering of light by nematic liquid crystal layers with random planar alignment: transformation of the scattered component

Dmitry D. Yakovlev; Vladimir M. Ryabtsev; Maria M. Sherman; Dmitry A. Yakovlev

doi:10.1117/12.2180064

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19 March 2015 Electrically controlled scattering of light by nematic liquid crystal layers with random planar alignment: transformation of the scattered component

Dmitry D. Yakovlev, Vladimir M. Ryabtsev, Maria M. Sherman, Dmitry A. Yakovlev

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Proceedings Volume 9448, Saratov Fall Meeting 2014: Optical Technologies in Biophysics and Medicine XVI; Laser Physics and Photonics XVI; and Computational Biophysics; 94482F (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2180064
Event: Saratov Fall Meeting 2014, 2014, Saratov, Russian Federation

Abstract

Nematic layers with a fine-domain random planar structure obtained using nonrubbed polymer alignment films exhibit a mixed, partly regular and partly diffuse transmission with complementary high-contrast channeled spectra of the regular and diffuse transmittances. We show experimentally that the power of the light scattered by such a layer can be controlled by an applied electric field. We demonstrate that under certain conditions, when a layer with random planar alignment is illuminated by a quasimonochromatic light beam, the power of the scattered component of the light transmitted by the layer has a nonmonotonic dependence on the voltage applied to the layer and that there are electrically-induced states in which the layer scatters all the transmitted light and states in which the layer scatters only a very small portion of the transmitted light. These features allow using electrically-driven cells with such layers as polarization-independent tunable diffusers.

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Dmitry D. Yakovlev, Vladimir M. Ryabtsev, Maria M. Sherman, and Dmitry A. Yakovlev "Electrically controlled scattering of light by nematic liquid crystal layers with random planar alignment: transformation of the scattered component", Proc. SPIE 9448, Saratov Fall Meeting 2014: Optical Technologies in Biophysics and Medicine XVI; Laser Physics and Photonics XVI; and Computational Biophysics, 94482F (19 March 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2180064

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