Radiative Transfer Theory and Diffusion of Light in Nematic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

In nematic liquid crystals light is strongly scattered from director fluctuations. We are interested in the limit where the incoming light wave is scattered many times. Then, the light transport can be described by a diffusion equation for the energy density of light with diffusion constants D∥ and D⊥, respectively, parallel and perpendicular to the director. We start from a radiative transfer theory, connect the diffusion constants to the dynamic structure factor of director fluctuations, and shortly discuss our results. Temporal correlations of the diffusing light probe the dynamics of director modes on much shorter time scales than single light scattering experiments. To account for the decaying temporal correlations, one has to add an absorption term to the diffusion equation, which we also link to the dynamic structure factor.