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Liquid crystals New designs in cholesteric colour

Nature volume 391, pages 745–746 (1998)Cite this article

Since their discovery in 1888, cholesteric liquid crystals have been subject to considerable attention, resulting in applications in ink and paint technologies, flat-panel displays and thermal imaging. Writing in Advanced Materials1, Tamaoki and co-workers describe a new technique for rewritable full-colour image recording on thin cholesteric films. The low-molecular-weight compound they have developed for this purpose is a cholesteric glass, which is stable at room temperature and which could have applications in optics as well as information display and storage.

Two technologically relevant questions about cholesterics are how to adjust the pitch, and how to keep it constant once it has the right value. As well as being sensitive to temperature, the pitch depends on the concentration of chiral constituents. High-resolution spatial patterning of pitch and colour can be achieved by ultraviolet irradiation of samples with photosensitive chiral dopants6. But although this technique has great potential for display applications, it is not suitable for rewritable recording because it is not reversible. Alternative ways of locking the pitch are by polymerization7,8, or by using a polymer network to stabilize the cholesteric structure9. In its ‘Designo’ programme, Mercedes-Benz uses cholesteric liquid-crystal polymers as special-effects paints for its cars. Polymer-stabilized low-molecular-weight cholesterics, with an internal network of photopolymers, are used in bistable reflective display applications3. But again, these schemes are not suitable for rewritable recording by altering the pitch because of their irreversibility.

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Figure 1: Sketch of cholesteric structure, showing the dependence of molecular orientation on position.
Figure 2: Transmission electron micrograph of freeze-fractured helical cholesteric.
Figure 3: Photographs of thermally addressed and quenched cholesteric solid films.

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  1. Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, 44242, Ohio, USA

    Peter Palffy-Muhoray

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Palffy-Muhoray, P. Liquid crystals New designs in cholesteric colour. Nature 391, 745–746 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/35753

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