Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 21, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Spontaneous helix formation in non-chiral bent-core liquid crystals with fast linear electro-optic effect
Sithara P Sreenilayam1, Yuri P Panarin1,2, Jagdish K Vij1
1Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Abstract:
Liquid crystals (LCs) represent one of the foundations of modern communication and photonic technologies. Present display technologies are based mainly on nematic LCs, which suffer from limited response time for use in active colour sequential displays and limited image grey scale. Herein we report the first observation of a spontaneously formed helix in a polar tilted smectic LC phase (SmC phase) of achiral bent-core (BC) molecules with the axis of helix lying parallel to the layer normal and a pitch much shorter than the optical wavelength. This new phase shows fast (∼30 μs) grey-scale switching due to the deformation of the helix by the electric field. Even more importantly, defect-free alignment is easily achieved for the first time for a BC mesogen, thus providing potential use in large-scale devices with fast linear and thresholdless electro-optical response.
Related Concept Videos
Mechanisms of Membrane-bending
Membrane bending can happen due to intrinsic changes in lipid composition or extrinsic association with different proteins. The proteins involved...
Cationic Chain-Growth Polymerization: Mechanism
Chemical Shift: Internal References and Solvent Effects
The internal reference compound generally used in NMR spectroscopy is tetramethylsilane (TMS). TMS is preferred because it is chemically inert, soluble in NMR solvents, and easily removable. Also, the highly shielded methyl protons in TMS yield an intense...
Induced Electric Dipoles
Since the absolute value of potential energy holds no physical meaning, its zero value can be chosen as per...
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity
Nonideal Two-Component Liquid Solutions

