Periodic electro-optical characteristics of ion-doped Smectic A phase liquid crystals driven by a low-frequency electric field |
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| Authors: | Shumeng Guo Xiao Liang Meng Wang Cuihong Zhang Lanying Zhang |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Materials Physics and Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, P. R. China;2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. China;3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Mechanical Electronic and Information Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology-Beijing, Beijing, P. R. China |
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| Abstract: | Functional liquid crystal (LC)-based electro-optical materials are promising candidates in a wide range of smart fields due to their excellent external stimuli-responsive characteristics. Herein, ion-doped Smectic A (SmA)-phase LCs gradually change from a transparent to a scattering state and then return to the transparent state via a circularly driven low-frequency electric field. All optical states can be maintained after removing the electric field. This phenomenon is due to charge transport and convection effects that appear and disappear periodically in SmA LCs doped with suitable ionic liquids. Diverse periodic characteristics were observed upon applying electric fields with different waveforms (e.g. square, sawtooth, and sine). Furthermore, the optical contrast of the periodic feature was abated by increasing the frequency of the electric field. These ion-doped SmA LCs can be widely used in multi-stable optical devices, optical switches, and timers, etc. |
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| Keywords: | Liquid crystals Smectic A phase periodic low-frequency electric field |
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