Blue phase liquid crystal phase transition for cyano compound chiral nematic liquid crystal mixtures with three two-ring core structures and chiral dopant concentrations

Blue phase (BP) temperature range of a chiral nematic liquid crystal (LC) mixture is dependent upon the host nematic LC chemical structure and chiral dopant concentration. In this study, we investigated BP phase transition behaviour and helical twisting power (HTP) using three chiral dopant concentrations of cyano compound chiral nematic LC mixtures incorporating three two-ring core structures in the host nematic LCs. The effect of the host nematic LC core structure, HTP and chiral dopant concentrations were considered on BP temperature ranges, for two types of complete BPI and BPII without isotropic phase (Iso) and two types of coexistence state of BPI+Iso and BPII+Iso.     

Optically switchable, polarization-independent holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal (H-PDLC) gratings

An optically switchable, polarization-independent holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal (H-PDLC) transmission grating is demonstrated by adding azobenzene-LC and chiral molecules into the H-PDLC formulation. The optical switchable mechanism is from the trans-cis photoisomerization of the doped azobenzene-LC, which modulates the refractive index of the LC rich area. The dependence of the diffraction efficiency of the H-DPLC grating without chiral molecules on light polarization suggests that the orientation of LC directors within the droplet is ellipsoidal and uniaxial. However, the addition of chiral molecules into the H-PDLC formulation helps the formation of isotropic and non-uniaxial LC directors within the droplets. The polarization properties of the grating are investigated and analyzed by the coupled and modified coupled wave theory with a model of sinusoidal dielectric modulation. The results show that the addition of chiral molecules changes the LC phase from nematic to chiral-nematic, where the grating efficiency, which is modulated by the photoinduced phase transition, is independent of the polarization of incident light. Our findings may help improve optical systems that utilize non-polarized light.     

Thermal and Optical Properties of Some Hydrogen-Bonded Liquid Crystal Mixtures

Phase transition properties of the mixtures of hydrogen-bonded nematic liquid crystals (HBLC) 4-hexylbenzoic acid (6BA), 4-(octyloxy)benzoic acid (8OBA), and 4-(decyloxy)benzoic acid (10OBA) have been investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarize optic microscope (POM). The DSC and POM results clearly indicate the existence of smectic and nematic phase transitions in binary mixtures. The phase transition temperature values of 6BA/10OBA mixtures have clearly increased with increasing heating rate. The activation energies were calculated for the phase transitions of 6BA/10OBA liquid crystal (LC) mixture. The optical transmittance of these mixed hydrogen-bonded nematic liquid crystals was investigated in terms of temperature variations through electrooptic methods. The electrooptic experiments indicate that, while low in the nematic phase, the optical transmittance is very high at the nematic-isotropic phase transition. The transmitted light intensity values of 6BA/8OBA mixture are somewhat higher than those of other binary mixtures, 6BA/10OBA and 8OBA/10OBA, a result associated with the different alkyloxy chain lengths.     

Light-controlled helical pitch and dynamic gratings

A chiral nematic liquid crystal (LC) with a photo-sensitive chiral agent is employed for a light-controlled modulation of optical activity and used as a model substance for a dynamic diffraction grating recording. The described liquid crystalline system has shown a strong nonlinear response with effective parameter of cubic nonlinearity being much greater of that characteristic of the orientational nonlinearity of LC. A simple mathematical model of light diffraction on the grating of modulated optical activity was developed. Calculated values of intensities and polarisation states of diffracting beams have shown very good agreement with the experimental data. LC systems with light-controlled chirality could be promising media for nonlinear optical applications or all-optical switching devices.     

Structure and frustration in liquid crystalline polyacrylates I. Bulk behaviour

The phase behaviour and structure are reported of a new type of frustrated side-chain liquid crystalline (LC) polymer, a polyacrylate with phenylbenzoate mesogenic side groups and a narrow polydispersity. At a high degree of polymerisation the LC polymers show a nematic, a smectic-A_d, a re-entrant nematic and a C phase, for shorter chains only a nematic and a C phase. This constitutes a new example of nematic re-entrance for which the driving field is the length of the polymer chain. The smectic-A_d layers consist of partially overlapped side groups while in the C phase the side chains are rearranged into chevron-like blocks of bilayers. We propose an explanation of the frustrated phase behaviour in terms of these two different competing length scales and their coupling to the backbone conformations. Received 28 February 2001 and Received in final form 6 August 2001     

Improvement of the blue phase stability in chiral nematic liquid crystal mixtures

ABSTRACT

The method of widening of the blue phase (BP) temperature range is presented. By means of polarising optical microscopy, we demonstrate that the temperature regime in which BP is stable is greatly enhanced by the cell thickness changes in mixtures of nematic liquid crystal (LC) and chiral dopant.     

Thermal and optical study of semiconducting CNTs-doped nematic liquid crystalline material

We report the thermal and spectroscopic analysis of the carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-doped nematic liquid crystal (NLC) material. The CNTs have been oriented in the p-ethoxybenzylidene p-butylaniline NLC. The thermal study of the CNTs doped nematic mixtures shows a significant decrease in the isotropic to nematic phase transition temperature. However higher doping concentration of CNTs has led to the further increase in transition temperature. The UV-Visible spectroscopy has been attempted on the CNTs/NLC mixtures at room temperature. The investigated NLC present one absorption band corresponding to π–π* electronic transition. A red shift of λ_max with the increasing concentration of CNTs in the mixture has been observed. The band gap of NLC has been found to decrease after the doping of CNTs. The absorbance was measured for the UV light, polarized parallel and perpendicular to the LC director in the planar aligned cell.     

Improvement of the switching frequency of a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator with optimal cell gap

In the application of a nematic liquid-crystal (LC) spatial light modulator, we derived the formula of retardation dynamic response of the device by solving the Erickson-Leslie equation. Then, the response time of the 2π phase change can be expressed as a function of the LC cell gap. The theoretical and experimental results all indicate that the response time of 2π first decreases and then increases with the LC cell gap increasing, and there is an optimal cell gap to obtain the shortest response time. Therefore, the method of optimizing the cell gap shows potential to improve the switching frequency for all type of nematic LC optical device with specific modulation quantity.     

Dielectric and electrooptical properties of hockey-stick-shaped liquid crystal with a negative dielectric anisotropy

We investigated dielectric properties of a hockey-stick-shaped liquid crystal (HLC). Two dielectric relaxation modes were observed at 0.91 kHz and 4.51 MHz. The low frequency relaxation modes in isotropic, smectic, and nematic phases are related to the motion of ions, collective tilt fluctuation, and rotation around the long molecular axis, respectively. Meanwhile, the high frequency relaxation modes in nematic and smectic phases was due to the rotation around the short axis of the molecules and hindered by the resistance of the ITO layers. We also examined the electrooptical response of the 5.0 wt% HLC-doped commercial nematic liquid crystal (LC) mixtures. The birefringence of the LC mixture was slightly increased, while the falling time and the rotational viscosity was decreased in the nematic phase.     

Structure,elasticity and phase transitions in liquid crystals with deformations

ABSTRACT

A molecular-statistical theory describing the nematic liquid crystals (LCs) with spherical inclusions (or point defects) is proposed. At given size of inclusions and nematic order parameters at the surfaces of inclusions (zero in the case of point defects) and far from inclusions (where the nematic LC is almost uniform), the distribution of nematic order parameters in the bulk of LC with inclusions was found to be fully determined by the elastic constants of LC. We have found and explained the two-step heat-driven transformation from the nematic phase into the isotropic phase, with the intermediate phase in between. The nematic order parameters and the elastic constants are evaluated in the framework of a unified approach based on the features of pair interaction potentials of the individual LC molecules. It is shown that, in the case of K₃₃ < K₁₁, the point defects should destroy the conventional nematic phase.     

Biphasic Dielectrophoresis of Isotropic Pocket Carriers Containing Quantum Dots (QDs) in Nematic Medium and Fabrication of QD Cluster Array with Matrix Emission of Point Light Sources

Unusual physical properties of an anisotropic liquid crystal (LC) medium, such as topological defects, elastic interaction with particles, and nonlinear electrophoresis, are ingeniously utilized to handle nanoparticles. Here, a new approach to manipulate quantum dots (QDs) using volume‐tunable and electrically movable isotropic pocket carriers in a nematic medium is demonstrated. This method is based on multiple mechanisms: spontaneous formation of QD flocs in LCs, sharp solubility contrast of QDs in nematic and isotropic phases, and biphasic dielectrophoresis in isotropic–nematic mixture. By thermally and electrically controlling the isotropic pockets containing QDs, an array of hierarchical QD clusters with the arbitrarily controllable size and location is fabricated. The phase boundary pressure squeezes the QD flocs to adhere to each other and on the substrate. The QD cluster array can be transferred to a flexible substrate, and can serve as a point light source array for display and image acquisition applications.     

Light scattering study of a twist grain boundary liquid crystal

Dynamic light scattering is used to probe the fluctuation modes of a liquid crystal exhibiting twist grain boundary (TGB) structure. At the chiral nematic to proposed "chiral line liquid" phase transition, anomalous temperature dependence in the fluctuation spectrum and an instability in the helicoidal director structure signify developing TGB order. At lower temperatures, the behavior of the smectic layer-director fluctuations ("soft" mode) indicates that the previously identified commensurate TGB(A) phase may in fact be a TGB(C) phase with an unusually small tilt angle.     

Banana-shaped 1,2,4-oxadiazoles

3,5-Disubstituted 1,2,4-oxadiazoles are a new type of liquid crystalline (LC) compounds with asymmetrical five-membered heterocycle as a central unit. They have a bent shape and are very convenient model-compounds for studying the dependence of the LC properties on the molecular design. We have also synthesized and investigated ‘banana-shaped’ 1,2,4-oxadiazoles using the ester groups as the linkage units. The new compounds exhibit spontaneous polarization in the smectic phase, even if there is no chiral group in the molecules. Preliminary experimental data suggest the presence of spontaneous polarization in the nematic phase as well. In order to study the structural properties of the LC phases, X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements on powder samples have been carried out. Based on the XRD data, a model of the structural arrangement of the bent molecules in the smectic phase is provided, which accounts for the macroscopic spontaneous polarization as well as the ferroelectric switching behavior.     

Light-induced instabilities driven by competing helical patterns in long-pitch cholesterics

We study theoretically the dynamical reorientation phenomena when a long-pitch cholesteric liquid-crystal film with homeotropic alignment is illuminated by a circularly polarized lightwave. In the present case, the natural cholesteric pitch is of the order of (or larger than) the film thickness. The helical cholesteric structure is thus frustrated by the boundary conditions without illumination. However, above a light intensity threshold reorientation occurs and the bifurcation scenario depends strongly on the natural cholesteric pitch. Recalling that a long-pitch cholesteric is achieved in practice by adding a small amount of chiral agents in a nematic liquid crystal, the observed dynamics can be viewed as the result of the competition between intrinsic and extrinsic unidimensional helical patterns. The intrinsic part consists of the helical deformations induced by the chirality of the dopant, whereas the extrinsic part is related to the chirality induced by the optical field through the non-uniform angular momentum transfer of light to a nematic. The all-optical analog in the case of a pure nematic (without chiral dopant), is also discussed.     

Characterization of phase transition in liquid crystals by voltaic potential difference

Our investigations show that the determination of voltaic potential differences is a useful method to characterize the phase transition N → I and I → N for a liquid-crystal (LC) mixture and for a phase transition from one liquid-crystalline phase into another. The ΔV/T curves show reversible as well as an irreversible behaviour. Moreover, the transition from the smectic into the nematic phase is demonstrated on liquid-crystalline polymers.     

Liquid-crystal adaptive lenses with modal control

We report on a novel approach to the realization of nematic liquid-crystal (LC) phase correctors to form spherical and cylindrical wave fronts. A LC cell with a distributed reactive electrical impedance was driven by an ac voltage applied to the cell boundary to yield the desired spatial distribution of the refractive index. The two-dimensional function of the phase delay introduced into the light beam depends on the frequency of the ac control voltage, the geometry of the boundary electrode surrounding the LC cell, and the electrical parameters of the cell. We realized a cylindrical adaptive lens with a clear aperture of 15 mm x 4mm and a spherical adaptive lens with circular aperture of 6.5 mm. Both devices are capable of focusing collimated light in the range infinity...0.5 m.     

Photoalignment of liquid crystals by cinnamate polyelectrolyte layer-by-layer ultrathin film

In this paper, a new layer-by-layer (LBL) ultrathin film with photosensitive cinnamoyl chromophores was prepared. It could induce uniform alignment of liquid crystals (LC) after irradiated by linearly polarized ultraviolet (LPUV) light. First, a photosensitive polycation containing cinnamoyl side groups was synthesized. Then a layer-by-layer ultrathin film was prepared in an aqueous solution of the polycations and poly (sodium 4-styrenesulphonate). The spectra of UV-vis absorption and ellipsometric measurement showed that the LBL film was uniform and suitable for the photoalignment of LC. When the film was irradiated by LPUV light, the cinnamoyl units in the film underwent [2 + 2] cycloaddition along the electric vector direction of the LPUV light. The polarized UV-vis spectra also proved that the film was anisotropic, and then the film could induce the homogeneous alignment of nematic LC. With the number of bilayers increasing, the alignment effect of multilayer film became better, and the contrast ratio became higher.     

Phase polymorphism and electro-optical properties of a ferroelectric liquid crystal containing the biphenyl system

ABSTRACT

In this article we present results concerning phase transitions and physical properties of the ferroelectric phase of the compound (S)-4-(1-methylheptyloxy)biphenyl–4'-(heptyloxy phenyl)-4-carboxylate (MHOBOPO7). The compound has the following phases: smectic ferroelectric C (SmC*), chiral nematic N*, and two defected phases, TGB_C and blue phase. The mesomorphic properties were investigated by means of three complementary methods: differential scanning calorimetry, polarizing light optical microscopy, and transmitted light intensity. The electro-optical measurements were carried out on an ordered sample in a middle electric field during very slow cooling from the nematic phase to the ferroelectric phase.     

铁电液晶螺旋结构的理论近似研究

由铁电液晶（FLC）手性近晶C相下螺旋结构的理论近似计算得出FLC一个螺距内平均折射率的表达式,根据表达式可得出一个螺距内的FLC分子作为一个整体可以看成一个向列相液晶分子模型的结论.当FLC沿螺旋轴方向的厚度等于FLC螺距的整数倍时,液晶盒内垂直取向的FLC分子可看作向列相液晶模型组成的集合.ZLI-3654型FLC与5CB型向列相液晶的实验结果验证了上述结论,理论结果和实验结果一致.这一理论可为畸变螺旋FLC和垂直排列畸变螺旋FLC器件的制备以及FLC的应用提供理论指导和更深的认识. 关键词： 铁电液晶 螺距 平均折射率 向列相液晶     

Fast and Accurate Phase Retardation Measurement of 0° Twisted Nematic Liquid Crystal Panels Based on the Principle of Homodyne Receiving

We describe herein a method to measure quickly (in less than 2 min) and accurately the phase retardation between the extraordinary and ordinary axis of homogeneous or 0° twisted nematic liquid crystal panels. Owing to the homodyne detection scheme, the setup allows us to probe liquid crystal (LC) panels with an optical power down to a fraction of 1 nW and, hence makes it possible to focus the light beam to a spot of only a few wavelengths in diameter without heating or inducing observable variations in the liquid crystal. The dependence of the phase retardation on the LC driver frequency and the temperature are presented and compared with the theoretical prediction.