Document Type

Article

Disciplines

1.4 CHEMICAL SCIENCES, 2.2 ELECTRICAL, ELECTRONIC, INFORMATION ENGINEERING

Abstract

We report the observation of an electro-optical effect for a linear rotation of the optical axis as function of the electric field in an achiral tilted bent-core liquid crystalline compound, in which 4-cyanoresorcinol bisbenzoate core is symmetrically terminated by long linear alkyl chains (n =16) on both ends. The linear electro-optic effect observed in this material is similar to the deformed helical ferroelectric liquid crystal (DHFLC) effect reported previously in a FLC material except that dimensions of the helical pitch differ by two orders of magnitude. In the chiral systems, the helical pitch usually lies on the scale of sub-optical wavelength, ~0.3 m depending on the material and temperature, whereas in the achiral system, the pitch lies on the nm scale. The DHFLC mode shows fast, analog switching due to a gradual distortion of the uniform helical structure by the electric field; the switching speed is faster than for the chiral systems. In contrast to the chiral FLCs, achiral liquid crystalline materials appear as better candidates for applications in displays and the photonic technologies.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TC04820C

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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