Modulation of unpolarized light in planar aligned subwavelength-pitch deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals

Abstract

We study the electro-optic properties of subwavelength-pitch deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals (DHFLC) illuminated with unpolarized light. In the experimental setup based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, it was observed that the reference and the sample beams being both unpolarized produce the interference pattern which is insensitive to rotation of in-plane optical axes of the DHFLC cell. We find that the field-induced shift of the interference fringes can be described in terms of the electrically dependent Pancharatnam relative phase determined by the averaged phase shift, whereas the visibility of the fringes is solely dictated by the phase retardation.

arXiv comment8 pages, 7 figures, revised version. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1508.04964

References in corpus (6)

• Geometric phases for mixed states in interferometry
• Kinematic approach to the mixed state geometric phase in nonunitary evolution
• Orientational "Kerr effect" and phase modulation of light in deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals with subwavelength pitch
• Enhanced Kerr effect in vertically aligned deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystals
• Light modulation in planar aligned short-pitch deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals
• Remarkable optics of short-pitch deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystals: symmetries, exceptional points and polarization-resolved angular patterns

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Chiral Optical Tamm States: Temporal Coupled-Mode Theory
• Interferometric and Uhlmann phases of mixed polarization states