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SUMMARY:Snell’s Law in Liquid Crystal Optics - Eric Stachura (Kennesaw S
 tate University)
DTSTART:20250822T080000Z
DTEND:20250822T084500Z
UID:TALK234769@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Snell&rsquo\;s Law of geometric optics is a classical result w
 hich describes how light propagates when passing from one material to anot
 her. Similarly\, Fermat&rsquo\;s principle says that light rays trace out 
 paths which minimize a certain functional (optical path length). Both laws
  are well understood in classical materials (e.g. air\, water\, glass\, et
 c.)\, both theoretically and experimentally. For more complex materials\, 
 such as liquid crystals\, these laws remain important for understanding ho
 w light rays propagate through such a material and have recently appeared 
 in studies involving optical interactions with topological solitons as wel
 l as Pancharatnam-Berry phase based lenses. I will discuss rigorous formul
 ations of Snell&rsquo\;s Law in the context of liquid crystals (for instan
 ce\, at the interface of a bi-axial nematic) and other general media such 
 as metasurfaces. I will then discuss various challenges in this context as
  well as the utility of having such laws in hand mathematically\, e.g. for
  applications to controlling light.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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