https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201716102010
Electrically controlled phases of partially polarized light and orientational Kerr effect in liquid crystal ferroelectrics
1
Saint-Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, 49 Kronverksky Pr., St. Petersburg 197101, Russia
2
Lebedev Physical Institute RAS, 53 Leninskiy Ave., Moscow 119991, Russia
⋆ e-mail: alexei.d.kiselev@gmail.com
⋆⋆ e-mail: vladimir.kesaev@gmail.com
⋆⋆⋆ e-mail: epozhidaev@mail.ru
Published online: 31 October 2017
We study the electro-optic properties of subwavelength-pitch deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals illuminated with partially polarized light. In an experimental setup based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, it is found that the interference pattern crucially depends on the degree of polarization of the incident light. We evaluate the electric field dependence of both the Pancharatnam relative phase and the geometric phase for the general case of nonunitarily evolving mixed polarization states.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
