Kerr effect and Kerr constant enhancement in vertically aligned deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystals

In this article, we review recently achieved Kerr effect progress in novel liquid crystal (LC) material: vertically aligned deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (VADHFLC). With an increasing applied electric field, the induced inplane birefringence of LCs shows quadratic nonlinearity. The theoretical calculations and experimental details are illustrated. With an enhanced Kerr constant to 130 nm/V2, this VADHFLC cell can achieve a 2π modulation by a small efficient electric field with a fast response around 100 μs and thus can be employed in both display and photonics devices.