Electro-Optic Kerr Response in Optically Isotropic Liquid Crystal Phases

Abstract

The results of an experimental investigation of the temperature and wavelength dependence of the Kerr constant (K) of mixtures with an increasing amount of chiral dopant in an isotropic liquid crystal phase are reported. The material was composed of a nematic liquid crystal (5CB) and a chiral dopant (CE2), which formed non-polymer-stabilized liquid crystalline blue phases with an exceptionally large value of K∼2 × 10−9 mV−2. The measurements were performed on liquid and blue phases at several concentrations covering a range of temperatures and using three wavelengths: 532 nm, 589 nm and 633 nm. The work focused on changes caused by concentration and their impact on the increase in the value of K, and it was found that in the case of the 5CB/CE2 mixture these changes were significant and quite systematic with temperature and wavelength. It is shown that the dispersion relation based on the single-band birefringence model described K well in isotropic liquid crystal phases at all of the measured concentrations. In an isotropic fluid, both temperature-dependent parameters in the dispersion relation had a simple linear form and, therefore, the K-surface could be described by only four constants. In the blue phase, the expression reproducing the temperature variation of K depended on concentration, which could vary from being almost linear to quasi-linear and could be represented well by an inverse exponential analytic expression.

Keywords

• Kerr constant
• blue phases
• liquid crystal mixture