Cholesteric Liquid Crystalline Polyether with Broad Tunable Circularly Polarized Luminescence

Strong circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with high purity and broad tunability was achieved in a new type of polyether-based cholesteric liquid crystalline (CLC) copolymers comprising chiral cholesteryl, nematic mesogens, and cross-linkable moieties. The phase boundary diagram of the copolymers was constructed, wherein the CLC phase in a wide composition and temperature window down to room temperature was achieved. Furthermore, reflection colors across the infrared and visible light regions can be continuously tuned by altering composition or temperature, which can be further fixed in the flexible CLC elastomer by photo-cross-linking. Introducing achiral dyes in the CLC thin films can generate strong CPL with distinct handedness and high dissymmetry factors (g_lum). Particularly, the left-handed full-color CPL is obtained by selective circularly polarized scattering in the spectral region outside the band gap of the CLC thin film, and the right-handed CPL with g_lum up to -1.05 is achieved within the band gap of the CLC thin film following the selective circularly polarized reflection mechanism. This type of CPL active material is expected to have potential applications in liquid crystal display and photonics.