Exploration of the surface director profile in a liquid crystal cell using coupling between the surface plasmon and half-leaky optical guided modes

The half-leaky guided mode geometry with a thin metal tunnel barrier as one cladding layer is used to explore the distribution of the director very near to the surface in a hybrid aligning nematic liquid crystal cell. From theoretical analysis together with numerical modeling, it is shown how the coupled p-polarized surface plasmon/s-like guided modes excited in the geometry leads to extremely sensitive to the surface director tilt profile near the metal wall-a sensitivity which is even higher than that of the surface plasmon resonance alone. The experimental results have fully confirmed the model predictions. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.