Reflection properties of distorted cholesteric liquid crystals

Abstract The optical reflection properties of distorted cholesteric liquid crystals are theoretically investigated. It is shown that higher-order reflection bands occur with distorted helical structures even for light propagation parallel to the twist axis. For aperiodic structures, the positions of the main reflection bands differ from that of periodic ones. Ferroelectric helical structures could be detected by reflection spectroscopy when the liquid crystal is deformed by an electric field.