This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop an entire new class of LC materials consisting of unique mixtures of polar and nonpolar nematic LCs that form an induced smectic-A phase with bilayer or multilayer microstructures. The proposed Induced Smetic-A LCs (ISALCs) are intrinsically low in viscosity, and therefore their optical properties can be electrically switched at low voltages without power pulse heating. ISALC materials will significantly improve the performance of flat panel displays, electro-optic devices, and storage media with infinitely long-term intrinsic memory. In contrast, current monolayer smectic-A LCs are highly viscous, and thus require either very high voltage for electrical driving or complicated thermal addressing. Other LC materials such as ferroelectric smectic-C and cholesteric require careful treatment of substrate surfaces and precise thickness of LC layers, which has limited their widespread commercial use.
The commercial applications of these materials include scientific and industrial instrumentation ranging from microelectronics manufacturing, telecommunications, computers, and training and simulation systems, and extending to security control systems.
