Polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystals

Abstract

Polymer-stabilized blue-phase liquid crystals (PS-BPLCs) possess several attractive features, such as submillisecond gray-to-gray response time, no need for alignment layer, optically isotropic voltage-off state, and large cell gap tolerance. These merits render this technology a strong candidate for next-generation displays. However, some challenges such as high operating voltage, hysteresis, residual birefringence, charging issues, and relatively low transmittance still hinder their widespread applications. This chapter gives a step-by-step introduction of PS-BPLC starting from basic material composition to the physical properties, including electric field, wavelength, temperature, and frequency effects, and then followed by a review on recent progress on BPLC materials and devices for achieving low voltage as well as high transmittance.