Small angle relaxation of highly deformed nematic liquid crystals

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Abstract
Transient phase response associated with a small angle relaxation from highly deformed nematic liquid crystal (LC) directors is analyzed experimentally and numerically. Qualitative agreement between computer simulations and experimental results is obtained. Based on these results, decay time of a fast LC modulator employing the transient nematic effect is derived. This decay time is found to be fast (with potential to achieve ∼50 μs), insensitive to LC thickness, but proportional to (λ/Δn0)2, λ being the wavelength and Δn0 the corresponding birefringence.