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arXiv · 2404.08768

Electrically tunable total reflection of light by oblique helicoidal cholesteric

Olena S. Iadlovska·Kamal Thapa·Mojtaba Rajabi·Mateusz Mrukiewicz·Sergij V. Shiyanovskii·Oleg D. Lavrentovich
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Abstract

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.

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Olena S. Iadlovska, Kamal Thapa, Mojtaba Rajabi, Mateusz Mrukiewicz, Sergij V. Shiyanovskii, Oleg D. Lavrentovich. 2024-04-12. Electrically tunable total reflection of light by oblique helicoidal cholesteric. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.08768

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