Observation of phase transition behavior in liquid crystal blue phases with high chirality by UV polarizing optical microscope and their dielectric property

Abstract

Temperature range and phase behavior of blue phases (BPs) are related with concentration of chiral dopant. However, it is difficult to observe the phase transition behavior of BPs with high chirality by using polarizing optical microscope (POM), because they show no Bragg's reflection in visible wavelength region. In this study, we observed textures and phase behavior of BPs with high chirality by using ultra-violet (UV) POM with measuring changes of the dielectric constant in in-plane switching cell, and made their phase diagrams.