GRATING DIFFRACTION IN (ANTI-)FERROELECTRIC LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS

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Abstract
For many inhomogeneous structures in LCD's, such as antiferro- or ferrielectric LCD's and striped textures in classical or short-pitch ferroelectric LCD's, we present a strong, rigorous algorithm for the calculation of the optical transmission. We illustrate the technique in case of some simple alternating structures. The number of diffraction orders strongly depends on the grating period (Λ) - light wavelength (λ) ratio Λ/λ. For the alternating antiferroelectric state the transmission of visible light can be treated with only the zeroth order of diffraction. In this case, we find that the AFLC can be simulated as a birefringent layer with the principal axes parallel and perpendicular to the layers. In case Λ/λ > 1 higher orders of diffraction come into play. The dimension of the corresponding eigenvalue problem becomes too large for analytical treatment. We give some numerical results.