Electromagnetic inverse problems
| industrial collaborators: | HP Labs and Sensatech |
| academic collaborators: | Manchester and Strathclyde |
| initiated : | 2003/04/20 |
| last updated: | 2008/07/25 |
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Grating aligned nematic liquid crystal (LC) cells are of interest for displays and other optical devices. To understand and optimise these devices, one needs to be able to probe the LC director profile around and above the grating structure. Work at Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Bristol, is focussed on developing a technique that can, using cells without gratings, characterise different surface treatments and LC materials and that can ultimately be used to deduce the director structure in grating aligned cells.
The LC problem is closely related to other electromagnetic problems at lower frequencies, in particular the use of low frequency electrostatic and electromagnetic measurements for location, detection and imaging problems. The low-frequency regime is relevant to work at Sensatech which focuses on the development of capacitance sensors for the location of anti-personnel land mines with low metal content.
The main focus of this Faraday Partnership project was the inverse problem of determining nematic liquid crystal director angles from optical measurements.
Project staff and support
Nick Polydorides (Postdoctoral Faraday Associate, University of Manchester)Bill Lionheart (Principal investigator, University of Manchester)
Nigel Mottram (Collaborating investigator, University of Strathclyde)
Melvin Brown (Technology Translator, Smith Institute)
This project was carried out at the University of Manchester in collaboration with the University of Strathclyde, and the industrial collaborators are HP Labs and Sensatech. The project was supported by earmarked EPSRC research funding, through the Faraday Partnership for Industrial Mathematics, and had the working title Electromagnetic inverse problems for liquid crystal displays and capacitance imaging. Start date: November 2002; Duration: 2 years.