Optical characteristics of micro-capsulized cholesteric liquid crystal

Abstract

Generally, the temperature change of the cholesteric liquid crystals causes a shift in molecular structure and, thus a different color at a constant observation angle. On top of it, when the microencapsulation process for stabilizing the cholesteric liquid crystal and converting it into an easily manipulable form is fulfilled, the micro-capsuilzed cholestric liquid crystals act as a three-dimensional diffraction grating for light of visible wavelengths and show similar behavior to the Bragg Scattering effects observed in crystalline solids. Since this Bragg-type scattering gives rise to the characteristic iridescent colors around the micro-capsulized cholesteric liquid crystal, their spatial spectral color distribution around it needs to be known for applying it to the temperature measurements. This study focuses on the above optical characteristics of the micro-capsulized cholesteric liquid crystals.