Fast electro-optic device controlled by dielectric response of planarly aligned cholesteric liquid crystals

Planarly aligned cholesteric liquid crystals of short pitch were applied by the in-plane electric field. The reorientation of the director, increasing pitch, and flexoelectricity induce the change of transmission. The main effect in this research is due to the director reorientation along the electric field. The flexoelectricity deters the change in the birefringence induced by the dielectric response. The response was very fast for the effectively thin periodic boundary of the half-pitch of liquid crystal. The contrast ratio was more than 80 for red light and the response time was less than 0.1 ms for the experimental conditions.