Improving the electro-optical properties of cholesteric liquid crystal devices via cellulose nanoparticle dopants

In the presence of a strong electric field, helices in a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) phase might be unwound, leaving liquid crystal (LC) molecules parallel to the electric field, thereby realizing transparency. Previously, we developed a novel particle-doped CLC cell without alignment layers that exhibited liquid crystal display (LCD) capabilities via electro-optical properties. This ability represents a novel advancement in LCD fabrication, resulting in enhanced electro-optical characteristics. To explore the impact of chirality on LCDs, we synthesized and radially constructed cellulose particles. These were then employed as chiral dopants in the production of LCD cells. The fabricated chiral nanoparticle (CNP)-doped PC05 CLC cell showed a high transparency of 97.4% and a fast response time of 7.6 ms. For the prepared radially constructed PDAT-doped PD2T PSCLC cell, a high transmittance of 93.6% and a fast response time of 13 ms were achieved. Fabrication of LCD cells without an alignment layer on substrates was achieved by indicate adding polymeric chiral nanoparticles into CLC mixtures. Adding 2 wt% chiral CNPs promoted the transmittance of the CLCs from 3.4 to 97%. This novel chiral dopant technique enables the use of a new easy method for the fabrication of LCDs.