Introduction to Liquid Crystals for Optical Design and Engineering

Devices based on liquid crystals have become the mainstay of display technology used in mobile devices, vehicles, computer systems, and almost any other opportunity for information display imaginable. The aim of this book is to provide the optics community a liquid crystals primer that focuses on the optical components made from these fascinating materials.

The book provides a functional overview of liquid crystal devices, their history, and their applications so that readers are prepared for more advanced texts and can continue to grow their abilities in this field. While it is not meant to be a complete mathematical treatise on the basics and applications of liquid crystals, the book does fill in some of the technical gaps, in particular in the area of adaptive optics applications.

Preface

1 - Introduction to Liquid Crystals
1.1 Historical Development of Liquid Crystals
1.2 Liquid Crystals Today
1.3 Liquid Crystal Phases
1.4 Applications of Liquid Crystals in Technology
1.5 Summary
References

2 - Properties of Liquid Crystals
2.1 Order Parameters
2.2 Typical Molecular Structure
2.3 Materials Properties
     2.3.1 Optical properties
     2.3.2 Dielectric properties
     2.3.3 Mechanical properties
2.4 Alignment in Liquid Crystals
     2.4.1 Ideal bookshelf
     2.4.2 Chevron formation
2.5 Summary
References

3 P- olarization and Birefringence in Liquid Crystal Devices
3.1 Overview of Optics
     3.1.1 Reflection and refraction
     3.1.2 Dispersion of light
     3.1.3 Interaction of light
     3.1.4 Monochromatic light and coherence
3.2 Polarized Light
     3.2.1 Polarization
3.3 Birefringence
3.4 Polarization Rotators
3.5 Measurement of Refractive Index
3.6 Birefringence in Liquid Crystals
3.7 Summary
References

4 Liquid Crystal Displays
4.1 LCD Basics
     4.1.1 Polarization revisited
     4.1.2 Twisted nematic effect in liquid crystals
     4.1.3 Backlighting
4.2 Liquid Crystal Operating Modes
     4.2.1 Twisted nematic mode
     4.2.2 In-plane switching mode
     4.2.3 Vertical alignment mode
     4.2.4 Compensation films
4.3 Display-Addressing Schemes
4.4 Ferro- and Anti-ferroelectric Liquid Crystals
4.5 Useful Measurements for Liquid Crystal Cells
     4.5.1 Thickness of the sample cel
     4.5.2 RC constant of a liquid crystal cell
4.6 Summary
References

5 - Spatial Light Modulators
5.1 Operation of Spatial Light Modulators
5.2 Control of SLMs
     5.2.1 Electrically addressed SLMs
     5.2.2 Optically addressed SLMs
5.3 Basic SLM Applications
     5.3.1 Optical switching for telecommunications
     5.3.2 Digitally tunable optical filter
     5.3.3 Fabry–Pérot tunable filter
     5.3.4 Laser pulse shaping
     5.3.5 Optical data processing
5.4 Summary
References

6 - Spatial Light Modulators as Optical Elements
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Optical Elements
     6.2.1 Diffraction grating
     6.2.2 Blazed diffraction grating
     6.2.3 Fresnel lens
6.3 SLM optical elements
6.4 Summary
References

7 - Adaptive Optics with Liquid Crystals
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Adaptive Optics: Definitions and History
7.3 Image Formation Principles
7.4 Effects of Optical Aberrations
7.5 Active and Adaptive Optics
7.6 Liquid Crystal Correctors
7.7 Selection of Spatial Light Modulators in AO
7.8 Characterization and Control of Liquid Crystal Devices
7.9 Fundamentals of Wavefront Sensing
     7.9.1 Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor
     7.9.2 Phase diversity or curvature sensor
7.10 Liquid Crystals in an AO System
7.11 Summary
References

8 - Liquid Crystal Devices: Looking Ahead
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Current Research Topics
8.3 Innovations in Liquid Crystal Devices
8.4 Summary
References

9 - Historical Bibliography
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Publications Listed by Publication Data

Index