Simple, Accurate and Low Cost Optical Techniques for the Measurement of 1. Birefringence in Liquid Crystals and 2. Variation of the Angle of the Small Angled Prism with Temperature

Abstract

Two optical techniques are developed for the accurate measurement of birefringence in liquid crystals and the observation of the variation of the angle with temperature of the small angled prism used for the measurement of refractive indices in liquid crystals. It has been observed that the small variation of the angle of the prism makes a considerable variation in the birefringence. Hence, a simple technique has been developed for this measurement. The second optical setup developed works on the principle of Newton's rings and gives directly the birefringence of a liquid crystal. The development details and the preliminary results are presented and discussed in the light of the available techniques.

Keywords:

• birefringence
• Newton's rings
• refractive indices
• small angled prism

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Management, and the Principal of The Hindu College, Machilipatnam, for providing facilities to carry out the measurements. One of the authors Dr. P. V. Datta Prasad expresses his gratitude to DST, India for providing travel grant to attend the 22 ILCC at Jeju, South Korea from June 29th to July 4th 2008 where this paper has been presented.

Notes

*Present Address: K. L.College of Engineering, Vaddeswaram 522 502, India.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

V. G. K. M. Pisipati*

*Present Address: K. L.College of Engineering, Vaddeswaram 522 502, India.