Abstract
Photonic band gap materials have the ability to modulate light. When they can be dynamically controlled beyond static modulation, their versatility improves and they become very useful in scientific and industrial applications. The quality of photonic band gap materials depends on the tunable wavelength range, dynamic controllability, and wavelength selectivity in response to external cues. In this paper, we demonstrate an electrically tunable photonic band gap material that covers a wide range (241 nm) in the visible spectrum and is based on a monodomain blue-phase liquid crystal stabilized by nonmesogenic and chiral mesogenic monomers. With this approach, we can accurately tune a reflection wavelength that possesses a narrow bandwidth (27 nm) even under a high electric field. The switching is fully reversible owing to a relatively small hysteresis with a fast response time, and it also shows a wider viewing angle than that of cholesteric liquid crystals. We believe that the proposed material has the potential to tune color filters and bandpass filters.
Highlights
Blue-phase liquid crystals (BPLCs) are a unique photonic band gap material that exhibit selective reflection of visible light
The fabrication process of monodomain and multidomain BPLCs is described in the Experimental section and Fig. S1
We prepared three samples that consisted of nematic LCs, a chiral dopant (SRM17), a chiral monomer (SRM03), a mesogenic monomer (RM257), and a nonmesogenic monomer (TMPTA), and their molecular structures are shown in Fig. 1c, d, e
Summary
Blue-phase liquid crystals (BPLCs) are a unique photonic band gap material that exhibit selective reflection of visible light. Its application in electro-optic and photonic devices, such as tunable filters and lenses, lasers, sensors, gratings, and display devices, appears feasible[1,2,3]. BPLCs have three distinct thermodynamic phases, namely, BPI, BPII, and BPIII. BPIII forms no particular structural symmetry and is commonly referred to as a blue fog[4,5]. The three-dimensional (3D) crystallographic structures of BPI and BPII allow us to modulate the optical frequency in all directions. It is capable of acting as a 3D photonic crystal
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