Recent work in color changing polymer stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals in response to e-fields

Cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) have a self-assembled helicoidal structure that results in vibrant reflective colors. These chiral nematic materials can be stabilized by in-situ photopolymerization of reactive liquid crystal monomers present in the CLC mixture to form so-called polymer stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals (PS-CLC's). These PSCLCs exhibit several novel electric field driven optical responses, including color changing and spectral bandwidth changes. This changes are associated with electrical deformations of the polymer network and the surrounding liquid crystals response to the network deformations. Here we present our recent results in this area, including work to elucidate the mechanistic details of the electrically driven response and our application of this mechanism to other liquid crystals.