Electrically controlled phases of partially polarized light and orientational Kerr effect in liquid crystal ferroelectrics

Abstract

We study the electro-optic properties of subwavelength-pitch deformed-helix ferroelectric liquid crystals illuminated with partially polarized light. In an experimental setup based on the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, it is found that the interference pattern crucially depends on the degree of polarization of the incident light. We evaluate the electric field dependence of both the Pancharatnam relative phase and the geometric phase for the general case of nonunitarily evolving mixed polarization states.