Director Patterns and Optical Performance of 2D-lnhomogeneously Deformed Nematic Liquid Crystal Layers

Abstract

An original numerical computation of director configurations of a nematic liquid crystal layer in a two dimensional inhomogeneous (2D) electrical field is presented. In the calculation, a relaxation method is used to solve the corresponding differential equations and boundary value problems. The optical performance, as exemplified by the Fraunhofer diffraction, is then calculated.

The calculations involve the self-consistent coupling between the director deformation and the electrical field distribution and are applied to liquid crystal spatial light modulators. For the first time, the anisotropy of the modulation transfer function of a nematic liquid crystal light modulator is specified and its dependence on the device parameters as well as on the LC material constants is studied.

Key Words:

• liquid crystal displays
• spatial light modulators
• inhomogeneous electrical field
• resolution capability
• light diffraction
• diffraction efficiency