Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 20, 2026
Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Triboelectric-optical responsive cholesteric liquid crystals for self-powered smart window, E-paper display and
Huanxin Liu1, Zi Hao Guo1, Fan Xu1
1CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Key Laboratory of Micro-nano Energy and Sensor, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101400, China; School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Abstract:
Intelligent responsive devices are crucial for a variety of applications ranging from smart electronics to robotics. Electro-responsive cholesteric liquid crystals (CLC) have been widely applied in display panels, smart windows, and so on. In this work, we realize the mechanical stimuli-triggered optical responses of the CLC by integrating it with a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), which converts the mechanical motion into alternating current electricity and then tunes the different optical responses of the CLC. When the voltage applied on the CLC is relatively low (15-40 V), the TENG drives the switching between the bistable planar state and focal conic state of the CLC, which shows potential applications in self-powered smart windows or E-paper displays. When the voltage supplied by the TENG is larger than 60 V, a self-powered optical switch is demonstrated by utilizing the transformation between focal conic state and instantons homeotropic state of the CLC. This triboelectric-optical responsive device consumes no extra electric power and suggests a great potential for future smart electronics.
