Liquid Crystals Materials and Devices

Liquid crystal (LC) materials and devices play a central role in numerous established and emerging technologies. This book focuses on several large areas of research including polymer-dispersed liquid crystal technology and twisted smectic materials and applications, as well as nontraditional LC materials and applications. Various aspects of liquid crystal composite technology are featured. Of note is the work concentrating on the use of holography to imprint information into thin films of these systems. Three different approaches for employing holography with liquid crystal materials are discussed. In the ferroelectric liquid crystal arena, the intricacies of different chiral smectic-C architectures are described using detailed X-ray structural experiments on freestanding films. The differences between a molecule and a phase are explored. A number of nondisplay applications using this class of materials are presented and include topics such as adaptive optics, real-time holography and fiber-to-fiber interconnects. Also discussed are glass-forming liquid crystalline films and their ability to polarize photoluminescent emission, their utility in the fabrication of mid-wavelength infrared polarizers, and their utility in the fabrication of bistable electro-optical elements and broadband reflectors.