Nature Communications (May 2016)
Spontaneous helix formation in non-chiral bent-core liquid crystals with fast linear electro-optic effect
Abstract
Liquid crystals that consist of rod-like molecules currently dominate the materials used in industry for display and photonic applications. Here, the authors demonstrate electro-optic grey-scale switching based on the spontaneous formation of a short-pitch helix in a tilted smectic phase of achiral bent-core molecules.