Temperature Dependent Morphological and Electro-Optical Characteristics of Dye Doped Cholesteric Liquid Crystal

Abstract

Cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) have gain remarkable attention due to its property of stabilizing the planar (P) and focal conic (FC) states. This paper presents the temperature dependent behavior of cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) mixed with appropriate amount of dye. The pitch of sample corresponds to visible region (~1 µm) was adjusted by adding appropriate concentration of chiral dopant. The phase transition and morphological behavior was recorded using polarized optical microscope (POM) from planar state to isotropic state by heating the sample using temperature-controller. Experimental results indicated that increase in temperature impacts the morphology of CLC and strongly affects its electro-optical (E-O) properties. Further, POM studies showed that at room temperature dye doped CLC cell has initial transparent state (planar texture) however, when driving voltage was high (~27V) with lower frequency of 1 kHz, P state switched to FC state. On further increasing the temperature, minor distortion was observed in P state in comparison to P state of dye doped CLC cell at room temperature, however, at higher (~ 45˚C) temperature, low driving voltage was required to achieve the stable FC state. Further, FC state was switched to stable P state on applying high frequency (50 kHz) voltage. Afterward, above 45˚C temperature, the textures showed the sustained FC state of dye doped CLC cell with no switching to P state on applying high frequency (50 kHz) voltage. Thus, temperature dependent dye doped CLC cell showed the bi-stability feature upto 45˚C temperature, however, above this temperature showed the fixed FC state.