Birefringence

About: Birefringence is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 23586 publications have been published within this topic receiving 363407 citations.

Rotatory power and other optical properties of certain liquid crystals

Abstract: A group of liquid crystals, mainly derivates of cholesterol, shows remarkable optical properties, including strong rotatory power and selective reflexion of circularly polarized light in a narrow region of wave-lengths. In this paper it is shown how these properties can be explained by the assumption that the molecules are arranged in a special way, so that the electrical axes rotate screw-like. It is inessential whether this occurs in small steps or continuously. When the axes make one revolution over a thickness p, then light in a region around λ=pn will be reflected (n = refractive index). The second important parameter is the value of the double refraction α = (n 2 - n 1)/n. From p and α all optical properties can be calculated. No accurate data for testing the theory are available but qualitatively the agreement is complete.

Optics of liquid crystal displays

Abstract: This tutorial covers an introduction to liquid crystal technology and principles of operation of various modes of liquid crystal displays as well as the development of birefringent optical thin film technologies (e.g., polarizers, compensators) for improving the viewing quality of these displays.

Optical solitons in fibers

Abstract: 1. Introduction.- 2. Wave Motion.- 2.1 What is Wave Motion?.- 2.2 Dispersive and Nonlinear Effects of a Wave.- 2.3 Solitary Waves and the Korteweg de Vries Equation.- 2.4 Solution of the Korteweg de Vries Equation.- 3. Lightwave in Fibers.- 3.1 Polarization Effects.- 3.2 Plane Electromagnetic Waves in Dielectric Materials.- 3.3 Kerr Effect and Kerr Coefficient.- 3.4 Dielectric Waveguides.- 4. Information Transfer in Optical Fibers and Evolution of the Lightwave Packet.- 4.1 How Information is Coded in a Lightwave.- 4.2 How Information is Transferred in Optical Fibers.- 4.3 Master Equation for Information Transfer in Optical Fibers: The Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation.- 4.4 Evolution of the Wave Packet Due to the Group Velocity Dispersion.- 4.5 Evolution of the Wave Packet Due to the Nonlinearity.- 4.6 Technical Data of Dispersion and Nonlinearity in a Real Optical Fiber.- 4.7 Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation and a Solitary Wave Solution.- 4.8 Modulational Instability.- 4.9 Induced Modulational Instability.- 4.10 Modulational Instability Described by the Wave Kinetic Equation.- 5. Optical Solitons in Fibers.- 5.1 Soliton Solutions and the Results of Inverse Scattering.- 5.2 Soliton Periods.- 5.3 Conservation Quantities of the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation.- 5.4 Dark Solitons.- 5.5 Soliton Perturbation Theory.- 5.6 Effect of Fiber Loss.- 5.7 Effect of the Waveguide Property of a Fiber.- 5.8 Condition of Generation of a Soliton in Optical Fibers.- 5.9 First Experiments on Generation of Optical Solitons.- 6. All-Optical Soliton Transmission Systems.- 6.1 Raman Amplification and Reshaping of Optical Solitons-First Concept of All-Optical Transmission Systems.- 6.2 First Experiments of Soliton Reshaping and of Long Distance Transmission by Raman Amplifications.- 6.3 First Experiment of Soliton Transmission by Means of an Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier.- 6.4 Concept of the Guiding Center Soliton.- 6.5 The Gordon-Haus Effect and Soliton Timing Jitter.- 6.6 Interaction Between Two Adjacent Solitons.- 6.7 Interaction Between Two Solitons in Different Wavelength Channels.- 7. Control of Optical Solitons.- 7.1 Frequency-Domain Control.- 7.2 Time-Domain Control.- 7.3 Control by Means of Nonlinear Gain.- 7.4 Numerical Examples of Soliton Transmission Control.- 8. Influence of Higher-Order Terms.- 8.1 Self-Frequency Shift of a Soliton Produced by Induced Raman Scattering.- 8.2 Fission of Solitons Produced by Self-Induced Raman Scattering.- 8.3 Effects of Other Higher-Order Dispersion.- 9. Polarization Effects.- 9.1 Fiber Birefringence and Coupled Nonlinear Schrodinger Equations.- 9.2 Solitons in Fibers with Constant Birefringence.- 9.3 Polarization-Mode Dispersion.- 9.4 Solitons in Fibers with Randomly Varying Birefringence.- 10. Dispersion-Managed Solitons (DMS).- 10.1 Problems in Conventional Soliton Transmission.- 10.2 Dispersion Management with Dispersion-Decreasing Fibers.- 10.3 Dispersion Management with Dispersion Compensation.- 10.4 Quasi Solitons.- 11. Application of Dispersion Managed Solitons for Single-Channel Ultra-High Speed Transmissions.- 11.1 Enhancement of Pulse Energy.- 11.2 Reduction of Gordon-Haus Timing Jitter.- 11.3 Interaction Between Adjacent Pulses.- 11.4 Dense Dispersion Management.- 11.5 Nonstationary RZ Pulse Propagation.- 11.6 Some Recent Experiments.- 12. Application of Dispersion Managed Solitons for WDM Transmission.- 12.1 Frequency Shift Induced by Collisions Between DM Solitons in Different Channels.- 12.2 Temporal Shift Induced by Collisions Between DM Solitons in Different Channels.- 12.3 Doubly Periodic Dispersion Management.- 12.4 Some Recent WDM Experiments Using DM Solitons.- 13. Other Applications of Optical Solitons.- 13.1 Soliton Laser.- 13.2 Pulse Compression.- 13.3 All-Optical Switching.- 13.4 Solitons in Fibers with Gratings.- 13.5 Solitons in Microstructure Optical Fibers.- References.

Metasurface Polarization Optics: Independent Phase Control of Arbitrary Orthogonal States of Polarization.

Abstract: We present a method allowing for the imposition of two independent and arbitrary phase profiles on any pair of orthogonal states of polarization-linear, circular, or elliptical-relying only on simple, linearly birefringent wave plate elements arranged into metasurfaces. This stands in contrast to previous designs which could only address orthogonal linear, and to a limited extent, circular polarizations. Using this approach, we demonstrate chiral holograms characterized by fully independent far fields for each circular polarization and elliptical polarization beam splitters, both in the visible. This approach significantly expands the scope of metasurface polarization optics.

Transparent Alumina: A Light-Scattering Model

Abstract: A model based on Rayleigh-Gans-Debye light scattering theory has been developed to describe the light transmission properties of fine-grained, fully dense polycrystalline ceramics consisting of birefringent crystals. This model extends light transmission models based on geometrical optics, which are only valid for coarse-grained microstructures, to smaller crystal sizes. We verify our model by measuringthe light transmission properties of fully dense (>99.99%) polycrystalline alpha-alumina (PCA) with mean crystal sizes ranging from 60 mm down to 0.3 mm. The remarkable transparency exhibited by PCA samples with small crystal sizes (< 2 mm) is very well explained by thismodel.