Sreenilayam SP, Panarin YP, Vij JK, Panov VP, Lehmann A, Poppe M, Prehm M, Tschierske C. Spontaneous helix formation in non-chiral bent-core liquid crystals with fast linear electro-optic effect.
Nat Commun 2016;
7:11369. [PMID:
27156514 PMCID:
PMC4865739 DOI:
10.1038/ncomms11369]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 55] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2015] [Accepted: 03/21/2016] [Indexed: 01/31/2023] Open
Abstract
Liquid crystals (LCs) represent one of the foundations of modern communication and photonic technologies. Present display technologies are based mainly on nematic LCs, which suffer from limited response time for use in active colour sequential displays and limited image grey scale. Herein we report the first observation of a spontaneously formed helix in a polar tilted smectic LC phase (SmC phase) of achiral bent-core (BC) molecules with the axis of helix lying parallel to the layer normal and a pitch much shorter than the optical wavelength. This new phase shows fast (∼30 μs) grey-scale switching due to the deformation of the helix by the electric field. Even more importantly, defect-free alignment is easily achieved for the first time for a BC mesogen, thus providing potential use in large-scale devices with fast linear and thresholdless electro-optical response.
Liquid crystals that consist of rod-like molecules currently dominate the materials used in industry for display and photonic applications. Here, the authors demonstrate electro-optic grey-scale switching based on the spontaneous formation of a short-pitch helix in a tilted smectic phase of achiral bent-core molecules.
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