Electro-optical characteristics of cholesteric liquid crystal films based on CuS nanoparticles

Abstract

The CuS nanoparticles (NPs) coated by poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) layer were doped into bistable liquid crystal (LC) film to provide an electric, thermal or optical phase-shift controllable films. The CuS/PVP NPs could form a compatible NIR absorbing film, which could generate heat to switch LC film from planar texture to focal conic texture. The appropriate content of CuS/PVP NPs was provided to achieve fast thermal response, satisfactory dispersion and clear display brightness. The novel LC film containing 0.8 wt.% CuS/PVP NPs could save almost 51% time at thermal elimination, comparing to LC mixture without NIR absorbent. The hybrid organic-inorganic functional bistable LC material reported here extend and open up new application of LC writing tablets.

Keywords:

• Liquid crystal
• NIR absorbent
• phase transformation

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Program No. 52173263), Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (Program No. 2021JM-536, No. 2021GY-205, No. 2021JQ-877), Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education (Program No. 21JK0959), Scientific research fund for high-level talents of Xijing University (No. XJ21B04 and No. XJ21B02) and the Youth Innovation Team of Shaanxi Universities.