Influence of silver nanoparticles on blue phase liquid crystals

Abstract

The blue phase liquid crystal (BPLC) is a highly ordered liquid crystal (LC) phase that exists between cholesteric and isotropic phases in highly chiral liquid crystals. The BPLC has potential applications in next-generation display and photonic technology because of its unique properties such as polarizer-free fabrication, controllable Bragg reflection, sub-millisecond response time and wide viewing angle. BPLC is stable in a very small temperature range (0.5–1°C) and high driving voltage. To overcome these challenges, many new methods are being studied that increase the temperature range. The recent research focuses on studying the effect of the inclusion of silver nanoparticles onto the phase transition behaviour of blue phase materials. The effect is analysed using the polarizing microscopy and further confirmed by temperature-dependent dielectric spectroscopy.