Photoinduced Nematic – Cholesteric Structural Transitions in Liquid Crystal Cells with Homeotropic Anchoring

Abstract

By doping a nematic liquid crystal with two chiral agents of opposite handedness and distinctly different spectral ranges of molecular absorption a photoinduced structural transition from the nematic (non-helical) to cholesteric (helical) state was realized, as well as a transition between two cholesteric states with the opposite handedness. This finding extends our knowledge about formation of cholesteric structures and opens new horizons for application of cholesteric liquid crystals.

Keywords:

• Chiral dopant
• cholesteric
• compensated nematic
• fingerprint
• structural transition

Acknowledgment

The studies were partially supported by “Dnipro” program of French-Ukrainian research collaboration (grant M/16-2009). The authors thank Dr. W. Becker from Merck for providing LC MLC-6882 and chiral dopant R-811, Prof. L. Kutulya for kind provision of PBM material, and Prof. L. Lisetski for numerous fruitful discussions.