Jong Rak PARK^*, Gihan RYU, Jeongil BYUN, Heenam HWANG^†, Sung Tae KIM^‡ and Insun KIM^‡

LG Cable Co., Ltd., 555 Hogye-Dong, Dongan-Gu, Anyang, Kyunggi-Do 431-080, Korea

(Received April 16, 2002; Accepted July 8, 2002)

A numerical model based on Berreman's 4× 4 matrix approach was developed and used for computational simulation of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) polarizer. Explicit expressions of the 4× 4 propagation matrices for several optical films, which constitute a CLC polarizer, were presented. Numerical simulations for optical properties of a CLC layer, a linear polarizer and a CLC polarizer were executed, and the simulated results were found to be in fairly good agreement with measured results.

Key words: liquid crystal, cholesteric liquid crystal, polarizer, LCD, Berreman's 4× 4 matrix approach