Extremely High Kerr Constant and Low Operating Voltage in a Stable Room-Temperature Blue Phase III Derived from Three-Ring-Based Bent-Core Molecules

Raj Kumar Khan; Golam Mohiuddin; Nazma Begum; Srikanth Turlapati; Rao V S Nandiraju; Bugra Koknarugmani Debbarma; Sharmistha Ghosh

doi:10.1021/acsami.2c09392

Extremely High Kerr Constant and Low Operating Voltage in a Stable Room-Temperature Blue Phase III Derived from Three-Ring-Based Bent-Core Molecules

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Sep 21;14(37):42628-42634. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c09392. Epub 2022 Sep 8.

Authors

Raj Kumar Khan^{1

2}, Golam Mohiuddin³, Nazma Begum⁴, Srikanth Turlapati⁴, Rao V S Nandiraju⁴, Bugra Koknarugmani Debbarma³, Sharmistha Ghosh¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Calcutta, 92 Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road, Kolkata 700 009, India.
² Soft Condensed Matter Laboratory, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore 560080, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Science & Technology Meghalaya, Ri-Bhoi, Meghalaya 793101, India.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Assam University, Silchar, Assam-788011, India.

PMID: 36082439
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c09392

Abstract

In this study, we used a new series of highly polar three-ring-based bent-core liquid crystals (BCLCs) to stabilize a wide temperature range of blue phase III (BPIII), including room temperature. A significant finding is the implementation of electro-optical (E-O) switching at room temperature in the current BPIII system. The observed Kerr constant (K) has an extraordinarily high value (K ≈ 9.2 × 10^-9m V^-2) that exceeds all previously reported values in the category of BPIII materials. The extremely high value of K realizes the lowest operating voltage (V_on ≈ 3.3 V_rms/μm) for BPIII. The measured values of K and V_on in BPIII set a new limit for the experimentalist. The millisecond (ms) order response times are explained based on rotational viscosity. The present binary system of BPIII materials is an excellent choice for device application.

Keywords: Kerr effect; bent-core liquid crystal (BCLC); birefringence; blue phase III (BPIII); electro-optic.