Advances in Engineering Advances in Engineering features breaking research judged by Advances in Engineering advisory team to be of key importance in the Engineering field. Papers are selected from over 10,000 published each week from most peer reviewed journals.
Optics Letters, Vol. 38, Issue 17, pp. 3380-3383 (2013).
Yasuhiro Ogawa, Jun-ichi Fukuda, Hiroyuki Yoshida, and Masanori Ozaki.
Division of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan and
Nanosystem Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan and
PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.
Abstract
We numerically calculated the photonic band structure of a cholesteric blue phase II (BPII) liquid crystal using two models, the tensor order parameter model and the double-twist cylinder (DTC) model. The tensor order parameter model was derived numerically from the Landau–de Gennes theory, whereas the DTC model simply assumed a three-dimensional stack of ordered cylinders. The two models yielded similar photonic band structures; however, the polarization dependence of the transmission spectrum through the (100) direction in BPII was different. The results from the tensor order parameter model gave a better qualitative agreement with experiments on the transmission spectrum. This demonstrates the importance of a precise orientation model in the analysis of the optical properties of cholesteric blue phases.
© 2013 Optical Society of America
