Electrically tunable structural colors of cholesterics with oblique helicoidal director

ORAL

Abstract

A cholesteric liquid crystal was recently shown (Xiang, J. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 217801 (2014); Xiang, J. et al., Adv. Mater. 27, 3014 (2015)) to exhibit a peculiar oblique helicoidal state (ChOH) when acted upon by an electric field. The period of ChOH structure depends strongly on the applied field, which enables electrically tunable structural colors in an extraordinary broad spectral range from ultraviolet to infrared. We present experimental and theoretical studies of light reflection from ChOH as a function of the electric field, surface anchoring, and incident angle. Unlike the case of conventional cholecterics, ChOH shows tunable reflection at periodicities that correspond to both pitch (for oblique incidence) and half-the-pitch. Reflection spectra are used for the first in-situ measurements of bend elastic constant of the chiral material.

*The work was supported by NSF grant DMR-1410378 and REU program CHE-1659571.

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Presenters

  • Olena Iadlovska

    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute / Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA

Authors

  • Olena Iadlovska

    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute / Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA

  • Graham R Maxwell

    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA

  • Mateusz Mrukiewicz

    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA; Institute of Applied Physics, Military University of Technology, 00-908 Warsaw, P

  • Greta Babakhanova

    • Kent State University
    • Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA

  • Sergij V Shiyanovskii

    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA

  • O D Lavrentovich

    • Kent State University
    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, 44242, USA
    • Department of Physics and Advanced Materials Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University
    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program and Physics Department, Kent State University
    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State Univeristy
    • Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute / Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA
    • Department of Physics, Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University