2024/04/12 by Olena S. Iadlovska, Kamal Thapa, Iadlovska, Olena S. +9 · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Photonic and Optical Devices #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2404.08768
openalex publication_date 2024/04/12 · openalex created_date 2024/04/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
An oblique helicoidal state of a cholesteric liquid crystal (ChOH) is capable of continuous change of the pitch P in response to an applied electric field. Such a structure reflects 50% of the unpolarized light incident along the ChOH axis in the electrically tunable band determined by P/2. Here we demonstrate that at an oblique incidence of light, ChOH reflects 100% of light of any polarization. This singlet band of total reflection is associated with the full pitch P. We also describe the satellite P/2, P/3, and P/4 bands. The P/2 and P/4 bands are triplets while P/3 band is a singlet caused by multiple scatterings at P and P/2. A single ChOH cell acted upon by an electric field tunes all these bands in a very broad spectral range, from ultraviolet to infrared and beyond, thus representing a structural color device with enormous potential for optical and photonic applications.