Investigation of Refractive Indices of Free-Standing Films by Ellipsometry.

The refractive indices of free-standing films (FSFs) of an antiferroelectric liquid crystal MHPOBC and a conventional smectic liquid crystal 8CB were studied by means of transmission and reflection ellipsometry. When the FSF thickness of MHPOBC is thicker than 260  nm, the refractive indices of FSFs appear to be the same as those of bulk smectic layers. In the case of thin FSFs of 8CB with a small numbers of layers, birefringence could not be obtained clearly by means of reflection ellipsometry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]