A vertical-field-driven polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystal mode to obtain a higher transmittance and lower driving voltage.

We demonstrate a vertical-field-driven polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) mode for solving low transmittance and high driving voltage problems in conventional in-plane-switching (IPS) PS-BPLC modes. By controlling the ray directions of incident beams by means of two prism sheets attached to the top and bottom substrates, continuous grayscale properties can be achieved with a vertical field, where the transmittance of the proposed structure can be increased to become twice as high as that of a IPS PS-BPLC cell, and its driving voltage can also be lowered by about 20 V. With the vertical-field-driven PS-BPLC mode, the hysteresis problem of the IPS PS-BPLC mode can also be solved due to a reduction of the electric field required to achieve sufficient field-induced retardation.

Liquid-crystalline blue phase II system comprising a bent-core molecule with a wide stable temperature range.

A thermodynamically stable blue phase II (BPII) has been prepared, and its electrooptical (EO) performance has been evaluated in a host system of a conventional rodlike nematogen mixed with a bent-core molecule. For the mixed system presented, the widest temperature range of BPII stability, during cooling/heating, was >6 °C. This range is much wider than those of conventional nematogens blended with chiral dopants. EO observations show that the BPII produced exhibited stable EO performance based on the EO Kerr effect. The temperature dependence of the Kerr effect was found to be in approximate agreement with the Landau-de Gennes theory. Furthermore, this material demonstrated very fast, sub-millisecond-scale, response times, thus showing potential for use in high-speed EO devices.

Liquid-crystalline blue phase laser with widely tunable wavelength.

A lasing peak shift of more than 100 nm is realized due to the large shift of a photonic bandgap of a liquid-crystalline blue phase.

Photoisomerization-induced stable liquid crystalline cubic blue phase.

We have succeeded in obtaining a photoinduced liquid crystalline cubic BP in a mixture of photoinactive and photoresponsive bent-core mesogens. The UV stimulus can convert N* to cubic BP through photoisomerization of the azobenzene linkages included in the photoresponsive bent-core molecule.