Wavelength and Voltage Dependences of Refractive Indices of Nematic Liquid Crystals

Refractive indices of a mixture of nematic liquid crystals as functions both of wavelength and applied voltages were measured. The measured results are compared with a theoretical calculation in which first the distributions of tilt angle of the molecules were computed by solving a reorientation equation, then, the effective refractive indices were computed from this distribution using an index ellipsoid. It is shown that the agreement between the experimental measurements and the calculated values are fairly good within the experimental error.