Microstructure-Stabilized Blue Phase Liquid Crystals

Lin, James T.; Ho, Y.-L. D.; Chen, Lifeng; López‐García, Martín; Jiang, Shu-Man; Taverne, Mike P. C.; Lee, Chia Rong; Rarity, John

doi:10.1021/acsomega.8b01749

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Previously, TPP has been applied to form micro surface-relief gratings (or microgrooves) [57] which offers anchoring energy to LCs. For a typical surface morphology-induced anchoring, a smaller grating period results in larger anchoring energy (10 −5~1 0 −6 J/m 2 depending on the employed materials and grating periods) and many have demonstrated the potential of this technique in uniform or simple space-variant LC alignment [58][59][60][61]. Next, we delve into this discussion with emphasis from the device viewpoint.…”

Section: Two-photon Polymerization For Liquid-crystal Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Novel liquid crystal photonic devices enabled by two-photon polymerization [Invited]

He¹,

Tan²,

Chanda³

et al. 2019

Opt. Express

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In addition to displays, liquid crystals (LCs) have also found widespread applications in photonic devices, such as adaptive lens, adaptive optics, and sensors, because of their responses to electric field, temperature, and light. As the fabrication technique advances, more sophisticated devices can be designed and created. In this review, we report recent advances of two-photon polymerization-based direct-laser writing enabled LC devices. Firstly, we describe the basic working principle of two-photon polymerization. With this powerful fabrication technique, we can generate anchoring energy by surface morphology to align LC directors on different form factors. To prove this concept, we demonstrate LC alignment on planar, curvilinear surfaces as well as in three-dimensional volumes. Based on the results, we further propose a novel, ultra-broadband, twisted-nematic diffractive waveplate that can potentially be fulfilled by this technique. Next, we briefly discuss the current status of direct-laser writing on LC reactive mesogens and its potential applications. Finally, we present two design challenges: fabrication yield and polymer relaxation/deformation, remaining to be overcome.

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Section: Two-photon Polymerization For Liquid-crystal Alignmentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Novel liquid crystal photonic devices enabled by two-photon polymerization [Invited]

He¹,

Tan²,

Chanda³

et al. 2019

Opt. Express

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show abstract

“…BPs that exhibit over a wide range of temperature were obtained by adding a small amount of photo-reactive monomers and in situ polymerization, providing a temperature range of BPs over 50 • C including room temperature [25,26]. Other strategies have also been proposed to extend the temperature range of BPs, by dispersing nanoparticles [27,28], bent-core molecules [6,29], and T-shaped molecules [30], by confining BPs in the microsized walls [31][32][33], and by designing the chemical structure of LC molecules [34]. Second, cubic BPs generally exhibit polycrystalline structures, which are composed of small platelet domains with different crystallographic orientations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blue Phase Liquid Crystals with Tailored Crystal Orientation for Photonic Applications

Cho

Ozaki

2021

Symmetry

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Blue phase (BP) liquid crystals, which self-assemble into soft three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals, have attracted enormous research interest due to their ability to control light and potential photonic applications. BPs have long been known as optically isotropic materials, but recent works have revealed that achieving on-demand 3D orientation of BP crystals is necessary to obtain improved electro-optical performance and tailored optical characteristics. Various approaches have been proposed to precisely manipulate the crystal orientation of BPs on a substrate, through the assistance of external stimuli and directing self-assembly processes. Here, we discuss the various orientation-controlling technologies of BP crystals, with their mechanisms, advantages, drawbacks, and promising applications. This review first focuses on technologies to achieve the uniform crystal plane orientation of BPs on a substrate. Further, we review a strategy to control the azimuthal orientation of BPs along predesigned directions with a uniform crystal plane, allowing the 3D orientation to be uniquely defined on a substrate. The potential applications such as volume holograms are also discussed with their operation principle. This review provides significant advances in 3D photonic crystals and gives a huge potential for intelligent photonic devices with tailored optical characteristics.

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“…Stabilizing these materials in a single crystal structure has not been possible until very recently, though [3]. At present, BPs can be obtained as almost perfect crystals by using different technologies, such as different orienting layers, microstructure stabilization, continuous applied voltage or photopatterning [4][5][6][7]. Nevertheless, in most cases, fabrication methods lead to either limited-sized BP crystals (micrometer range), polycrystalline BP (platelets) or non-stabilized BP crystals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, self-assembly and growth of BP crystals is a very slow process -previous works quantify BP crystal growth rate to be around 5µm/min [8]-therefore the temperature rate for the crystals to yield a reasonable size is consequently low. Conventionally, the temperature rate to obtain BP layers has been set to 0.1-0.5°C/min, regardless whether the BP is obtained by heating up from the CLC phase or by cooling down from isotropic state [3][4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fast self-assembly of macroscopic blue phase 3D photonic crystals

Otón¹,

Morawiak²,

Gaładyk³

et al. 2020

Opt. Express

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Blue phase (BP) liquid crystals are materials with unique self-assembling properties. They can be regarded as 3D photonic crystals as they organize in 3D cubic structures with sub-micrometer range periodicity and display selective optical bandgaps. Yet, the obtained BP crystals are usually polycrystalline or micrometer-sized monocrystals. Producing large BP monocrystals has proven to be a challenging and time-consuming endeavor, due to BP crystal growth being notoriously slow and the complex requirements for achieving a reasonable size and monocrystalline structure. In this work we successfully obtained large BP monocrystals (single lattice orientation) by fast self-assembly. Our fabrication process, which is about 100× faster than in previous reported research, uses relatively simple techniques, therefore demonstrating a considerable improvement towards the manufacturing of 3D photonic crystals.

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Microstructure-Stabilized Blue Phase Liquid Crystals

Cited by 15 publications

References 32 publications

Novel liquid crystal photonic devices enabled by two-photon polymerization [Invited]

Novel liquid crystal photonic devices enabled by two-photon polymerization [Invited]

Blue Phase Liquid Crystals with Tailored Crystal Orientation for Photonic Applications

Fast self-assembly of macroscopic blue phase 3D photonic crystals

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