Polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystals: a tutorial [Invited]

Blue phase liquid crystals exhibit several attractive features, such as self-assembled three-dimensional cubic structures, optically-isotropic in the voltage-off state, no need for alignment layers, and submillisecond response time. This tutorial gives step-by-step introduction on basic blue-phase materials and properties, monomers and polymerization processes, and key device performance criteria for display and photonics applications. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America