Bragg Reflection of Light from Single-Domain Cholesteric Liquid-Crystal Films

Abstract

Reflection measurements have been made for the first time on single-domain cholesteric liquid-crystal films. We observed spectral structure and polarization character with obliquely incident light never seen with the previously studied disordered films. We also obtained numerical solutions to Maxwell's equations for obliquely incident light in such materials by a new method. Our reflectivity measurements agree fairly well with computations based on Oseen's spiraling-dielectric-ellipsoid optical model for cholesteric systems.