Optical Measurement of Local Director Distribution in a Distorted Nematic Liquid Crystal

Abstract

In this letter we demonstrate that the measurement of the reflectivity of a hybrid aligned nematic sample vs. the incidence angle give us detailed information on the local orientation of the molecular director, when the condition of total internal reflection is achieved inside the sample. Moreover theoretical fit of the experimental data shows that the method is suitable to obtain the tilt angles on the boundary walls with a sensitivity < 3°.