Geometrical Optics of a Twist-Oriented Nematic Liquid Crystal with Anisotropic Absorption

Abstract

The spatial dynamics of a polarized light in a smoothly inhomogeneous anisotropic medium with the admixture of an anisotropically absorbing dye was analyzed. A twist-oriented nematic liquid crystal with pleochroic dye was considered as this medium. A system of coupled reduced equations relative to Cartesian components of the electric component of light wave was derived in the geometrical-optics approximation. The system of coupled complex equations was analytically solved and the behavior of a linearly polarized wave in this medium is analyzed in the case of both absorption and amplification. An asymmetric effect of these two processes on a spatial dynamics of light propagation in the medium is found.