Thermal and Optical Enhancements to Liquid Crystal Hot Spot Detection Methods

Three enhancements to Liquid Crystal hot spot detection improve thermal and optical sensitivity while substantially maintaining simplicity, safety and relative low cost. These enhancements have permitted detection of hot spots unidentifiable by traditional LC methods. Details, capabilities and limitations of the enhancements are discussed, results of rudimentary defect thermal modeling are presented, and an improved metric for evaluating LC technique sensitivity is proposed.