OPTIMIZATION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE PROPAGATION THROUGH A HETEROGENEOUS LIQUID CRYSTAL LAYER

Abstract

Advances in technology have given way to concepts in warfare that were once constrained to the world of science fiction. In an effort to stay ahead of any potential adversarys weapons development, we must look down the path of countermeasures to high-energy electromagnetic weapons. In the attempt to engineer a material that can reduce transmitted beam intensity by the greatest factor, we look to liquid crystals. They have great potential to provide a starting point to engineer a material in order to show increased protection of DoD assets from high-energy beam weapons. We first develop one-dimensional finite-difference time-domain codes to solve Maxwells equations in order to model the electromagnetic wave propagation in a liquid crystal layer. After validating numerical results with analytical results for matched anchoring, we investigate the heterogeneous liquid crystal structures with mismatched anchoring conditions and determine the best anchoring conditions to minimize transmitted beam intensity. The main result of the simulation is that for a known incident wave the maximum reduction of the transmitted intensity is achieved with matched anchoring conditions. However, for mixed anchoring conditions, there is evidence that the mixed structure can reduce the intensity for a wider range of waves.