Polarization properties of nematic liquid crystal cell with tapered optical fiber
Citation
Title: Polarization properties of nematic liquid crystal cell with tapered optical fiber
Authors: Paweł Marć, Karol Stasiewicz, Joanna Korec, Leszek R. Jaroszewicz, Przemysław Kula
Keywords
- liquid crystals
- optical fibers
- polarization
- Mueller matrix
- dichroism
- birefringence
- tapered optical fiber
- optical losses
- depolarization
- singular-value decomposition
Brief
This article analyzes the polarization properties of a liquid crystal cell with a tapered optical fiber, finding that the device has significant optical losses and dichroic properties, negligible depolarization, and weak birefringence.
Summary
The article details the design and study of a hybrid optical fiber device. This device uses a tapered single-mode telecommunication optical fiber integrated with a liquid crystal cell (LCC). The authors found that the device exhibits significant optical losses and dichroic properties but weak birefringence. The device also shows negligible depolarization properties.
These are the key findings of the study:
- The significant losses in the device are primarily attributed to the geometry of the sample.
- The use of E7 liquid crystal material, which has a higher refractive index, enhances the device's dichroic properties, resulting in a dynamic range twice that of devices using 6CHBT material.
- The electro-optic dependence of birefringence is less stable in the device using E7 compared to the device using 6CHBT.
- The unique dichroic properties of the device allowed the researchers to validate the singular-value decomposition model, which is typically used to analyze optical systems consisting of partial polarizers placed between linear retarders. This is the first known instance of this model being used to characterize an optical fiber element.
- The calculated Polarization Dependent Loss (PDL) confirmed the efficacy of using both the singular-value decomposition model and the polar decomposition model to describe the optical properties of such hybrid optical devices.
Origin: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1230340219300654