Determination of the Director Orientation Inside A Hybrid Nematic Cell By Total Internal-reflection

In this paper we report computer calculations of the reflectivity of a hybrid nematic cell near the condition of total internal reflection. The Berreman matrices method allows us to drop the approximations used in previous papers. In this way we get details about the interference pattern arising when the total internal reflection occurs inside the sample. We show how the reflectivity curve is affected by the director orientation which in a hybrid cell is essentially due to the boundary conditions. Our results suggest that measurements of this reflection pattern can give information about the local director orientation.