Enlargement of blue-phase stability for rod-like low-molecular-weight chiral nematic liquid crystal mixtures

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the enlargement of liquid crystal (LC) blue-phase (BP) temperature range using the rod-like low-molecular-weight cyano phenyl-type chiral nematic LC with various core group and chiral dopant concentrations. Also, the electro-optic response time was investigated for them. We found that the BP temperature range was strongly dependent upon the core structure and the chiral dopant concentration for the chiral nematic LC mixtures having the same terminal group. Also, we found a stable BP with a wide temperature range (more than 6 K), including a BP-isotropic coexistence state over 13.5 K upon heating and cooling processes and very fast response time (less than 1 ms), by using the cyano phenyl-type chiral nematic LC mixture with a high molecular aspect ratio and a high chiral dopant concentration.

Keywords:

• liquid crystal
• blue phase
• temperature range
• rod-like chiral nematic liquid crystal
• core group
• concentration of chiral dopant

Acknowledgement

We thank JNC Co. LTD for providing the nematic mixture, JC-1041.