We present a facile method to control the three-dimensional (3D) orientation of blue phase (BP) liquid crystals. The field-induced intermediate phases, focal conic and BP X, from electrically unwound homeotropic state induce the [001] crystal axis to be aligned along the surface anchoring and the (110) crystal plane oriented parallel to the substrate, respectively. This method was used to fabricate a computer-generated hologram through Bragg-Berry (BB) phase that the phase of Bragg reflected light is modulated by controlling the azimuthal orientation of BPs. Furthermore, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the BB hologram shows circular polarization selectivity for all angles of incidence, owing to the 3D helical structure of BPs.
We have investigated the azimuthal orientation behavior of blue phase (BPI) lattice reoriented from the electrically unwound homeotropic state, and it was found that the azimuthal angle changes to align the [001] axis parallel to the easy axis on a unidirectionally orienting surface upon an electric filed treatment. By combining this effect with the Pancharatnam-Berry effect, we designed and demonstrated various holographic optical elements (HOEs) such as deflector, lens, and hologram by appropriately designing the distribution of lattice orientations. In contrast to cholesteric liquid crystals that show diminished circular polarization selectivity upon largely oblique incidence, we demonstrate that the BP-based HOEs maintain the circular polarization selectivity even for oblique light incidence, owing to the three-dimensional helical structure of the BP.
Liquid crystalline cholesteric blue phases (BPs) are of high interest for tunable electro-optic applications owing to their fast response times and quasi-polarization-independent phase modulation capabilities. Various approaches have recently been proposed to control the crystal orientation of BPs on substrates, but their basic orientation properties on standard, unidirectionally orienting substrates had not been investigated in detail. Here, detailed studies have been made on the Kossel diagrams of BPs on unidirectionally orienting substrates to understand the three-dimensional crystal orientation of BPs. We find that BPs show strong thermal hysteresis and that the structure of the preceding phase determines the orientation of BPs. Specifically, the BP II – I transition is accompanied by a rotation of the crystal such that the crystal direction defined by certain low-value Miller indices transform into different directions, and within the allowed rotations, different azimuthal configurations are obtained in the same cell depending on the thermal process. Our findings demonstrate that, for the alignment control of BPs, the thermal process is as important as the properties of the alignment layer.
A new type of tunable Fresnel deflector and lens composed of liquid crystal was developed. Combined structure of multiple interdigitated electrodes and the high-resistivity (HR) layer implements the saw-tooth distribution of electrical potential with only the planar surfaces of the transparent substrates. According to the numerical calculation and design, experimental devices were manufactured with the liquid crystal (LC) material sealed into the sandwiched flat glass plates of 0.7 mm thickness with rubbed alignment layers set to an anti-parallel configuration. Fabricated beam deflector with no moving parts shows the maximum tilt angle of ±1.3 deg which can apply for optical image stabilizer (OIS) of micro camera. We also discussed and verified their lens characteristics to be extended more advanced applications. Transparent interdigitated electrodes were concentrically aligned on the lens aperture with the insulator gaps under their boundary area. The diameter of the lens aperture was 30 mm and the total number of Fresnel zone was 100. Phase retardation of the beam wavefront irradiated from the LC lens device can be evaluated by polarizing microscope images with a monochromatic filter. Radial positions of each observed fringe are plotted and fitted with 2nd degree polynomial approximation. The number of appeared fringes is over 600 in whole lens aperture area and the correlation coefficients of all approximations are over 0.993 that seems enough ideal optical wavefront. The obtained maximum lens powers from the approximations are about ±4 m-1 which was satisfied both convex and concave lens characteristics; and their practical use for the tunable lens grade eyeglasses became more prospective.
A chiral beamsplitter is an optical component that can split left- and right-handed circularly polarized light into orthogonal direction. Unlike a widely used linearly-polarized beamsplitter, realization of chiral beamsplitter by laser fabricated-gyroid crystal is just recently reported. However, due to its low circular dichroism ratio and limitation of applicable light wavelength which couldn't be reduced further below microwave region, chiral beamsplitter is still far from real application. Here we approach differently by using liquid crystalline cholesteric blue phases (BPs) which possess self-alignment 3D chiral structures. Our chiral beam splitters based on BPs achieved high circular dichroism extinction ratio and could become a useful component for developing integrated circuit especially in visible wavelength and UV region. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations were also performed along with experiments to support our hypothesis.
Binary blends of phthalocyanine (Pc) LCs, 1, 4, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, 25-octadecylphthalocyanine (C10PcH2) and the corresponding Zn complex (C10PcZn) were studied which have the identical hexagonal columnar (Colh) mesophase and the same order of carrier mobility (~ 10-1 cm2 V-1 s-1) in the mesophase. The phase diagram shows a complete miscibility in the Colh mesophase and no eutectic point was detected. The carrier mobility evaluated by Time-Of-flight (TOF) technique goes down to 10-2 cm2 V-1 s-1 in Colh phase of the initial blends prepared by solution mixing. However, the treatment of these binary systems with repetitive heating and cooling gives recovering of carrier mobility to the original level, though their HOMO and LUMO levels are slightly different in these two mesogenic Pcs. These results indicate that two types of single component column form a hexagonal array in mesophase. Also the blends with PCBM were studied on carrier mobility as well as miscibility and phase separation.
KEYWORDS: Solar cells, Heterojunctions, Photovoltaics, Thin film solar cells, External quantum efficiency, Absorbance, Crystals, Molecules, Absorption, Energy conversion efficiency
Bulk heterojunction organic thin-film solar cells utilizing soluble phthalocyanine derivatives, 1,4,8,11,15,18,22,25-octaalkylphthalocyanine (CnPcH2, n = 6, 7, 9, 10), were investigated. Two broad peaks existing in the external quantum efficiency spectra almost correspond to the Q-band and B-band of CnPcH2. The solar cell utilizing C6PcH2 had the best photovoltaic properties as evidenced by open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density, fill factor, and energy conversion efficiency. Almost the same photovoltaic properties were observed in the solar cells utilizing C9PcH2 and C10PcH2. We discuss the photovoltaic properties by taking into consideration the crystal structure and electronic state of CnPcH2 from the results of the absorbance spectra, X-ray diffraction measurement, and polarization microscope observation.
We report tunable single-mode lasing with an improved slope efficiency from a cholesteric liquid crystal (ChLC)
cavity with a three-layered structure. The device consists of one photopolymerized ChLC layer with a wide
reflection band, another ChLC layer with a notch reflection band and a Rhodamine-6G-doped ionic liquid layer
acting as the gain medium. Single-mode lasing can be obtained in this device structure because the ChLC layer with
the notch reflection band strongly reflects only one of the Fabry-Perot cavity modes. Tuning of the lasing
wavelength is achieved by tuning the reflection band of the notch ChLC. The device showed a maximum slope
efficiency of 16%, which was found to be approximately 1.5 times larger than that of ordinary ChLC lasers doped
with the pyrromethene 597 laser dye.
A liquid crystalline phthalocyanine semiconductor, 1, 4, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, 25-hexahexylphthalocyanine (C6PcH2) was
studied on the drift mobility of charged carriers by a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) method. It was found that this compound
exhibits an ambipolar nature for charge transport and the hole and electron mobilities were determined to be in the order
of 10-1 cm2 V-1 s-1 for polydomain films of the hexagonal disordered columnar (Colhd) mesophase. This is comparable to
that of the octyl homologue (C8PcH2) reported by Hanna et al. However, C6PcH2 did not show any tendency to form the
homeotropic alignment between ITO-coated glass substrates, though C8PcH2 so clearly and easily does. Clear decay
curves of the transient photocurrents could be obtained in TOF measurements even for polydomain films of the
crystalline solid phase to give a strongly temperature-dependent mobility of holes which reaches to 1.1 cm2 V-1 s-1 at
room temperature (RT) as the temperature goes down, whilst the electron mobility slightly increases to be 0.5 cm2 V-1 s-1at RT. This compound could easily form thin films by spin-coating technique with the toluene solution and a simple
bulk-heterojunction thin film solar cell was fabricated to give a good performance such as 3.1 % of power conversion
efficiency and > 70 % of external quantum efficiency.
A structural defect was introduced within the helical lattice of cholesteric liquid crystals to realize a tunable photonic
defect mode in the selective reflection band, or the polarization sensitive photonic band-gap of the cholesteric liquid
crystal. The cholesteric liquid crystal material was locally polymerized via a two-photon polymerization process and a
finite unpolymerized region was left between two polymerized layers to act as the structural defect in which the helical
pitch is different from the polymerized bulk. The structural defect was functionalized by first of all, rinsing the
unpolymerized cholesteric liquid crystal, and then infiltrating a photo-chromic dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystal
material into the gap. A defect mode was observed in the selective reflection band of the cholesteric liquid material at a
wavelength depending on the contrast between the pitch at the defect and the bulk. The defect mode was tunable by
applying heat or irradiating light at λ ~ 400 nm on the sample, which caused the shortening of the helix pitch of the
cholesteric liquid crystal at the defect, therefore increasing the pitch contrast between the bulk and the defect. Reversible
tuning of the defect mode was realized in an electrode-free cell.
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