Selective chiral nematics

The selective redection of chiral nematic Hquid crystals has also been used to develop sensors for pressure, radiation (especially infrared), wind shear over surfaces, stmctural fatigue, and foreign chemical vapor (48). Other types of Hquid crystals have been used to make sensors to measure both electric and magnetic fields. 

Very large values of gCPPL may be more easily obtained via doping of LCs, e.g. the near maximum value of gCPPL = 1.8 for 0.2% achiral ter(fluorene) doped in chiral nematic LC film (35-pm thick) at the wavelength range of selective reflection for the LC [135],... 

The pitch of the helix for compound 42 was found to be approximately 0.2-0.3 xm, thus the material selectively reflects visible light over a wide temperature range. Moreover, the pitch is relatively temperature insensitive thus the material can be used in large area non-absorbing polarizers, or in optical notch filters or reflectors. In addition, in the glassy state the helical macrostructure of the chiral nematic phases is retained, thus similar applications are possible. 

Fig.48 The Grandjean plane texture of the chiral nematic phase of supermolecule 43. There is a blue iridescent color which is due to the selective reflection of light from the helical macrostructure (xlOO)...

In this liquid crystal phase, the molecules have non-symmetrical carbon atoms and thus lose mirror symmetry. Otherwise optically active molecules are doped into host nematogenic molecules to induce the chiral liquid crystals. The liquid crystals consisting of such molecules show a helical structure. The most important chiral liquid crystal is the cholesteric liquid crystals. As discussed in Section 1.2, the cholesteric liquid crystal was the first discovered liquid crystal and is an important member of the liquid crystal family. In some of the literature, it is denoted as the N phase, the chiral nematic liquid crystal. As a convention, the asterisk is used in the nomenclature of liquid crystals to mean the chiral phase. Cholesteric liquid crystals have beautiful and interesting optical properties, e.g., the selective reflection of circularly polarized light, significant optical rotation, circular dichroism, etc. 

Only a few solvents are known to dissolve cellulose completely, and solid cellulose decomposes before melting. Therefore, it is difficult to study the mesophase behavior of cellulose. Chanzy et al. [32] reported lyotropic mesophases of cellulose in a mixture of jV-methyl-morpholine-Af-oxide and water (20-50%), but were unable to determine the nature of the mesophase. Lyotropic cholesteric mesophase formation in highly concentrated mixtures of cellulose in trifluoroa-cetic acid + chlorinated-alkane solvent [33] and in ammonia/ammonium thiocyanate solutions [34] has been studied, and although poor textures were obtained in the polarizing microscope, high optical rotatory power has been measured in an optical rotation (ORD) experiment, which could be fitted to the de Vries equation [Eq. (3)] for selective reflection beyond the visible wavelength region and was taken as proof of a lyotropic chiral nematic phase. 

The optical properties of chiral nematic phases are closely related to their supermolecular Structures, as stated by the considerations of de Vries. In particular, the planar textures exhibit beautiful colors correlated to the pitch P of the helicoidal structures by Eq. (1), if the selective reflection wavelength lies in the visible range, and many examples are shown in Fig. 2. 

Ruslim C, Ichimura K. 2002. Photoswitching in chiral nematic liquid crystals inter action selective helical twist inversion by a single chiral dopant. J Mater Chem... 

D. Katsis, H.P. Chen, J.C. Mastrangelo, S.H. Chen, T.N. Blanton, Vitrified chiral-nematic liquid crystalline films for selective reflection and circular polarization. Chem. Mater. 11, 1590 (1999)... 

S.H. Chen, R.J. Jin, D. Katsis, J.C. Mastrangelo, S. Papernov, A.W. Schmid, Photoracemization broadening of selective reflection and polarization band of glassy chiral-nematic films. Liq. Cryst. 27, 201-209 (2000)... 

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