An approach to a model disordered birefringent medium for light depolarization applied to a liquid crystal device

Abstract

A general model consisting of micro-wave plates is presented as a straightforward extension of Jones–Mueller calculus in order to describe the effect that undergoes a perfectly polarized quasi-monochromatic light beam transmitted through a disordered birefringent medium. The model treats the birefringent medium as an array of micro-wave plates lying side by side. The transmitted light beam results spatially divided in micro-beams which inherit from micro-wave plates different polarization states and hence, spatial depolarization is achieved. The model is applied to a liquid crystal sandwich-like cell subject to a splay-bend perturbation in the bulk. The model output is cast against the experimental data with a set of parameters throughout simulations. A good agreement is obtained between experimental data and model results.