Spontaneous formation of polarization diffraction gratings in surface-stabilized cells filled with liquid crystal in the modulated nematic phase

Liquid crystals in the twist bend modulated nematic phase spontaneously form gratings when filled in planar cells. Such gratings transform the polarization properties of the incident light and as such can be used as low cost switchers because no surface patterning is required to obtain the grating. In addition, the polariused to determine the spatial variation of the optical axis in the cell. In this paper, we report on a generalized behavior of the polarization of the diffracted light in cells of various thicknesses and for different twist bend nematic materials.