Improvement of turn-on time of liquid-crystal phase retarder by using an additional control voltage

Abstract

We investigate theoretically and experimentally the process of turn-on time control of a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) based phase retarder by means of an additional control voltage. We propose a theoretical model of reorientation of NLC molecules in crossed electric fields (conventional transverse field and additional longitudinal field). The dynamics of reorientation of NLC molecules is considered depending on the ratio of amplitudes of control voltages. We show the possibility to reduce the turn-on time in NLC-based phase-retarder management by means of two control voltages.