Periodic window, period doubling, and chaos in a liquid crystal bistable optical device

Abstract

A twisted nematic liquid crystal (TNLC) bistable optical device is constructed to study the Feigenbaum scenario1 in a manner of Gibbs et al.2 The simple transmission, having a single near-trapezoidal hump and a non-negligible extinction level, facilitates experimental observation and computer simulation. A number of periodic windows, i.e. 3, 4, 5, and 7T(T means a period), have been easily observed as well as period doublings up to 4T and chaos. It was also confirmed that these waveforms have the 'universal-sequence' patterns reported by Metropolis et al.3 Based on a simple 'broken-linear' modelling of the TNLC modulator transmission characteristics, the computer simulation has been performed to show period doublings, periodic windows, and period mergings. It exhibits reasonably good agreement with the experiment, and explains easy observation of periodic windows.