Structure of Twisted States in Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals Studied by Microspectrophotometry and Numerical Calculations

Abstract

The transmittance spectra of twisted states of surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal cells were measured under a polarizing optical microscope. It was found that the two twisted states give different spectra, as expected by an apparent color difference. There were two cases; in one case the two spectra interchange by rotating a cell, while in the other case the two spectra do not interchange. We could simulate both cases by numerical calculations of the spectra using a smectic layer bend model. The spectral interchange could be analytically explained on the basis of the Jones retardation matrix method. A simple method for judging the condition of the interchange is proposed.