Ray-based optical visualisation of complex birefringent structures including energy transport

Poy, Guilhem (author), Žumer, Slobodan (author)

We propose an efficient method to simulate light propagation in lossless and non-scattering uniaxial birefringent media, based on a standard ray-tracing technique supplemented by a newly-derived transport equation for the electric field amplitude along a ray and a tailored interpolation algorithm for the reconstruction of the electromagnetic fields. We show that this algorithm is accurate in comparison to a full solution of Maxwell's equations when the permittivity tensor of the birefringent medium typically varies over a length much bigger than the wavelength. We demonstrate the usefulness of our code for soft matter by comparing experimental images of liquid crystal droplets with simulated bright-field optical micrographs, and conclude that our method is more general than the usual Jones method, which is only valid under polarised illumination conditions. We also point out other possible applications of our method, including liquid crystal based flat element design and diffraction pattern calculations for periodic liquid crystal samples.

• Language: English
• Keywords: soft matter physics, liquid crystals, optics, birefringence
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FMF - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2019
• Number of pages: Str. 3659-3670
• Numbering: Vol. 15, no. 18
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-107824
• UDC: 535
• ISSN on article: 1744-683X
• DOI: 10.1039/c8sm02448k
• COBISS.SI-ID: 32291367
• Publication date in RUL: 28.05.2019

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Soft matter
• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• ISSN: 1744-683X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 19616551

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 28.05.2019

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: fizika mehke snovi, tekoči kristali, optika, dvolomnost

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: H2020
• Project number: 834256
• Name: Interacting optical and topological solitons in frustrated cholesterics
• Acronym: OPTOSOL