Electric field-induced monodomain blue phase liquid crystals

We demonstrate an electric field-induced monodomain blue phase liquid crystal and its application for polarizer-free reflective displays. Superior to multidomain structure, the monodomain exhibits a relatively high reflectance and narrow bandwidth (similar to 25 nm) so the reflected colors look vivid. As the applied voltage increases, the double-twist structure is gradually unwound so that Bragg reflection decreases leading to analogous grayscale. The submillisecond response time enables this reflective display to play videos without image blurs. Such a monodomain blue phase selectively reflects right-handed circularly polarized light when the employed chiral dopant is right-handed, and the reflected light is nearly circularly polarized. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.