Elimination of the Fabry-Perot effect in the 4×4 matrix method for inhomogeneous uniaxial media

Abstract

Based on the 4×4 matrix method for inhomogeneous uniaxial media by Berreman [J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62, 502 (1972); 63, 1374 (1973)] and by Wöhler et al. [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 5, 1554 (1988)], a simple method to eliminate the Fabry-Perot effect caused by optical discontinuities at the input and output interfaces has been developed. It facilitates an easy comparison between the results of the Jones matrix method and the 4×4 matrix method without the time-consuming spectral average for the latter. Modeling the case of liquid-crystal displays with incoherent back-light sources, this new method will either improve the accuracy with similar computation time or save computation time with similar accuracy, as compared to the ordinary "faster" 4×4 matrix method.