Polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal voltage sensor

We present a novel electric-field and voltage sensor based on the electro-optical properties of polymer-dispersed liquid-crystals (PDLCs). In principle, the transmittance of PDLCs is a nonlinear function of the applied electrical field. To measure an AC field we superposed to it a known DC field. This allowed us to achieve linearization of the PDLC response and to measure transmittance changes independently of the light-intensity level variations. Validation experiments are presented.