Switching in surface stabilised ferroelectric liquid crystal (SSFLC) cells
takes place through the formation and evolution of domains, which can grow
up to many tens of microns in size. Domain growth can be described by the A
vrami model, but this relies on a statistical distribution of the number of
nucleated domains, and hence a large number of domains are required for th
is model to succeed. We discuss the limitations of this model, for example
in a micro-display pixel, which is between 10-20 microns in size, and there
fore only a few domains exist within each pixel. We also investigated the e
ffects of light scattering during partial switching. Light scattering throu
gh domains is modelled using the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) metho
d, and shows good agreement with experimental results.