This Small Business Innovation Phase I project will synthesize materials with negative birefringence which can be used to decrease the birefringence of LC mixtures. This will allow the firm to make thicker cells which will increase the yields and minimize display problems due to minor variances in cell thickness. The birefringence of liquid crystals generally falls with increasing wavelength (a property called birefringence dispersion), but the optimal birefringence for a fixed path length rises with increasing wavelength. This leads to chromatic behavior in LC displays. We furthermore propose to synthesize LC materials with negative birefringence dispersion, which can be used to greatly decrease the chromicity of LC displays. There are many immediate ramifications of developing a liquid crystal with negative birefringence dispersion. For instance, liquid crystal shutters would no longer suffer from such severe chromatic disturbances, optical filters would be much more color-balanced and provide more free spectral range, polarization interference filters would need fewer stages and hence be less expensive while transmitting more light, and Fabry-Perot tunable filters could be made using liquid crystal SLIIs. Liquid Crystal shutters without chromatic disturbances, optical filters more color balanced and have more spectral range, benefits to polarization interference filters, make Fabry-Perot tunable filters using liquid crystal SLM's.
