1AW1 Creation of polymer-stabilized blue phases and their application to display devices

Abstract

A temperature range of a cholesteric blue phase (BP) was remarkably extended by in-situ polymerization of an appropriate amount of monomers within BP. This material or state with a wide stable BP range has been called "polymer-stabilized blue phase". The stabilizing mechanism is proposed based on thermodynamics and geometrical frustration of orientational order of the composite system. The polymer-stabilized blue phases show anomalously large Kerr effect and fast electro-optic response of less than 1 ms. Therefore, the polymer-stabilized blue phases will contribute toward providing new liquid crystal displays with high quality and low cost, because they are optically isotropic and require no surface alignment treatment.