Exploration of the surface director profile in a liquid crystal cell using coupling between the surface plasmon and half-leaky optical guided modes

Abstract

The half-leaky guided mode geometry with a thin metal tunnel barrier as one cladding layer is used to explore the distribution of the director very near to the surface in a hybrid aligning nematic liquid crystal cell. From theoretical analysis together with numerical modeling, it is shown how the coupled p-polarized surface plasmon/s-like guided modes excited in the geometry leads to extremely sensitive to the surface director tilt profile near the metal wall—a sensitivity which is even higher than that of the surface plasmon resonance alone. The experimental results have fully confirmed the model predictions.