Blue phases of cholesteric liquid crystals as thermotropic photonic crystals

The study of dye-doped low pitch cholesteric liquid crystals in their blue phases as an example of tunable "weak" photonic crystals is proposed and demonstrated. The presence of the blue phases in cholesterics can be tuned with temperature, and this allows for an easy in situ comparison of the emission and/or absorption of the dyes with or without an enwrapping lattice of disclination lines. The fluorescence emission of the dyes is shown to be affected by the presence of the blue phases. Although unlikely to be suitable for real applications (due to the natural low refractive index contrast), these systems may represent unique examples of tunable photonic crystals. It is proposed that single crystals of dye-doped blue phases should provide a very interesting testing ground for the study of optical emission anisotropies which can, on the other hand, be controlled by an external parameter.