Novel materials for polymer-stabilized blue phase

Blue phase shows one the fastest switching via induced birefringence by an external electrical field observed in liquid crystals. However, the pure blue phase typically has a narrow temperature range. Applying polymer-stabilization using reactive mesogens, a blue phase with a largely increased temperature range of up to 60 K can be obtained. Prerequisite for a good stabilization is the adequate matching of RMs and the optimized polymerization conditions. To achieve a low operating voltage of the polymer stabilised Blue phase display device, the material properties of the host - namely the product of the optical birefringence Δn and the electrical anisotropy Δε - has to be optimised. New host developments yielding a largely increased Δn * Δε ~ 40 at room temperature are presented.