Cholesteric liquid crystal depolarizer

Abstract

The design and performance test of a cholesteric liquid crystal depolarizer (CLCD) is presented. This new depolarizer is a wedge-shaped cell filled with cholesteric liquid crystal material. By placing a CLCD in its path, the incident light beam is divided into a great number of micro beams in space, and each micro light beam has different polarization state and orientation, hence achieving the depolarization effect. Over a conventional optical depolarizer, the CLCD is easy built and insensitive to the polarization orientation of incident light. © 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.