Optical spectra of hybrid cholesteric elastomers doped with metallic nano-ellipsoids.*

We consider a hybrid system composed of a cholesteric elastomer doped with metallic nano-ellipsoids of different materials. One of the semi-axes of the ellipsoidal nanoparticles is aligned parallel to the helical axis of the host cholesteric medium. We calculate the effective dielectric tensor by using a generalization of the Maxwell–Garnet formalism for uniaxial media with low birefringence. We use this approach to obtain the co-polarised and cross-polarized transmission and reflection spectra of circularly polarized light of both handednesses impinging the sample normally. We obtain these optical spectra versus the constituent parameters of the ellipsoids (size of its semiaxes) forming the guest medium and the strain parameter of the host elastomer medium