The photonic density of states and the light energy density in cholesteric liquid crystal cells

The photonic density of states (PDS) of the eigen polarizations (EPs) in cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) cells are calculated. The dependences of the PDS on the parameters characterizing absorption, gain and refractive index of the CLC layer surroundings were obtained. We investigated the possibility of connections between the PDS and the density of the light energy accumulated in the medium and showed that these characteristics have analogous spectra and, besides, the influences of the problem parameters on these characteristics also are analogous. It was shown that the decrement of the refractive index of the CLC layer surroundings leads to a sharp increase of the maximum PDS and, consequently, leads to a sharp decrement of the laser excitation threshold. We showed that the subject system can work as a low threshold laser or a multi-position trigger.