REDUCING BERREMAN 4X4 FORMULATION OF LIQUID-CRYSTAL-DISPLAY OPTICS TO 2X2 JONES VECTOR EQUATIONS

We use a perturbation expansion to obtain a generalized 2 X 2 Jones vector description that is equivalent to Berreman's description. We show that for typical liquid-crystal displays (LCD's) the bulk reflections are weak so that the first-order 2 X 2 Jones solution is generally sufficient and affords fast and reasonably accurate computations of the overall optical properties of LCD devices.