Rigorous estimation of the LC director distribution and its influence on light propagation in LC-based optical devices

Abstract

Devices based on liquid crystal (LC) exhibit a great interest in Optics due to their capability to set up applications with variable properties. Some examples of these elements are spatial light modulators (SLM) based on parallelaligned liquid crystal on silicon (PA-LCoS) microdisplays. Other applications of LC in diffractive elements are based on polymer-dispersed liquid crystal devices (H-PDLC), e.g. diffraction lenses, optical data storage, and image capture devices. These examples share one of the most exciting features of LC, which is the capability to change the optical properties with an external voltage. Here, a review of the latest developments in estimating the director distribution in LC-based devices is summarised. The results here summarised show the potential of the approach for rigorously analysing the fringing field and crosstalk polarimetric impact on PA-LCoS devices, the bending in H-PDLC fringes, and the application of machine learning on the estimation of the LC director distribution in this kind of devices.