Reflection spectra and near-field images of a liquid crystalline half-Skyrmion lattice

• Published in: Optics express 2018-01, Vol.26 (2), p.1174-1184
• Main Authors: Fukuda, Jun-Ichi, Žumer, Slobodan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/oe.26.001174

We investigate numerically the optical properties of a hexagonal half-Skyrmion lattice exhibited by a highly chiral liquid crystal confined between two parallel plates. Our study focuses on the near and far-field reflection for normally incident light with different polarizations. We show that, when the wavelength of the incident light is longer than a threshold value, the reflectivity is almost insensitive to the polarization of the incident light, although the intensity profiles of the reflected light, in particular in the near-field regime, depend significantly on the polarization. The former property is attributable to the quasi two-dimensional nature of the half-Skyrmion lattice, that is, almost uniform orientational order along the direction normal to the confining plates. Our results for the intensity of reflected light generated by evanescent as well as propagating contributions suggest that direct evidence of the formation and structure of half-Skyrmions could be provided by near-field optics with resolutions higher than that of conventional optical microscopy.