On Peculiarities in Localization of Light in Cholesteric Liquid Crystals

We have analyzed peculiarities in the localization of light in a layer of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) for the normal incidence of light. It is shown that dielectric boundaries strongly affect the localization. For the minimal influence of dielectric boundaries (i.e., for n_s = $\sqrt{{\epsilon }_m}$), the total field for the eigenmodes in the CLC layer varies smoothly upon a displacement along the z axis directed along the axis of the medium (here, ε_m is the mean permittivity of the CLC layer and n_s is the refractive index of the external medium). When n_s differs from $\sqrt{{\epsilon }_m}$ or when the polarization of incident light differing from the polarization of the eigenmodes, oscillations appear in the dependence of the energy of the total wave field in the CLC layer on z. It is shown that the amount of the energy stored in the CLC layer depends on n_s, and the total accumulated energy in the CLC layer increases monotonically with n_s.