We present two functions for characterization of birefringent media with application to twisted nematic liquid crystal (LC) cells in the field off state. The first function is for reflective LC cells and the second is for transmissive LC cells. Based on the Stockes formalism, it is shown that these functions describe the ability of a layer of the twisted birefringent medium to change polarization of the output light and are invariant to the layer orientation. The characteristic functions are found in simple procedures and can be used for simultaneous determination of retardation, its wavelength dispersion, and twist angle, as well as for solving optimization problems. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.
Export Date: 22 July 2015