Electrically Induced Splitting of the Selective Reflection in Polymer Stabilized Cholesteric Liquid Crystals

Electrical reconfiguration of the cholesteric liquid crystal phase is subject to extensive prior research. Here, a distinctive composition that allows the typically singular selective reflection to be split into two distinct and tunable selective reflections with an electric field is reported. The distinctive electro-optic phenomena (reflection notch splitting) are shown to be composition dependent and enabled by the introduction of appreciable amounts of side chain liquid crystalline mesogens. Functional opportunities enabled by the distinguished control of the two reflection elements are demonstrated, including spectrally variant polarization filters.