| dc.description.abstract | One of the advantages of blue phase liquid crystals (BPLCs) is the property of fast response. However, the intrinsic temperature range of BPLCs is too narrow to be applied for real application. To expand the temperature range of BPLCs, several methods have been proposed. Among them, in 2002, Kikuchi et al. proposed a useful method to expand the temperature range of BPLCs based on polymer stabilization technique, which is the most commonly used method to widen the temperature range of BPLCs. In 2016, our lab proposed another method to broaden the temperature range of the BPLCs by surface stabilization technique. In this study, a comparison of electro-optical (EO) properties between the polymer stabilized (PS) BPLCs and the surface stabilized (SS) BPLCs will be made. Moreover, some characteristics of EO properties of SSBPLCs and PSBPLCs will also be demonstrated.
The study can be divided into three parts. First, we will discuss the change of effective refractive index difference of PSBPLCs under various applied voltages, whose direction is perpendicular to the substrate, by an inclined input light beam. Second, we will discuss the method to decrease the operation voltage of PSBPLCs. The operation voltage is high/low with/without adding photo-initiator in PSBPLCs. Third, the polarization dependent diffraction patterns and efficiencies of PSBPLCs and SSBPLCs will also be investigated. In the second and third parts of experiments, we will show that the optical hysteresis effect of SSBPLCs is smaller than that of PSBPLCs. Moreover, the response time of PSBPLCs/SSBPLCs in the second and third experiments will also be investigated.
We believe that the investigation in this study will be a useful reference to further studies of the SSBPLCs/PSBPLCs. Either the SSBPLCs or PSBPLCs have great potential to be applied for optical devices, such as LC display, grating, etc.
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