The dispersion of organic N-benzyl-2-methyl-4-nitroaniline (BNA) in nematic liquid crystals (LCs) is studied. BNA doping decreases the threshold voltage of cell because of the reduced splay elastic constant and increased dielectric anisotropy of the LC mixture. When operated in the high voltage difference condition, the BNA-doped LC cell has a fall time that is five times faster than that of the pure one because of the decrements in the threshold voltage of the cell and rotational viscosity of the LC mixture. The additional restoring force induced by the BNA's spontaneous polarization electric field (SPEF) also assists to decrease the fall time of the LC cell. The decreased viscosity can be deduced from the decrements in phase transition temperature and associated order parameter of the LC mixture. Density functional theory calculation demonstrates that the BNA dopant strengthens the absorbance for blue light, enhances the molecular interaction energy and dipole moment, decreases the molecular energy gap, and thus increases the permittivity of the LC mixture. The calculation also shows that the increased dipole moment, polarizability, and polarizability anisotropy increase the dielectric anisotropy of the LC mixture, which agrees with the experimental results well. BNA doping has a promising application to the fields of LC devices and displays. Nematic liquid crystals (LCs) are extraordinarily responsive and optically uniaxial materials. Nematic LCs have been extensively used in diverse applications, such as optical nonlinearity, optical phase modulators, microdisplays, flat panel displays, optical antennas, and optical switching, due to their electro-optical property and other admirable features 1-5. LCs with a fast response are vital in removing motion blur in moving pictures and resolving cross-talk in 3D displays 6-9. The response time of LCs should be less than 3 ms to diminish motion blur and cross-talk. Several techniques have been proposed to resolve this issue, and they include tuning the viscosity of materials 10 , varying the anchoring energy 11 , changing the electrode shape and driving scheme 12 , changing the cell gap 13 , modifying the guest-host material 14 , and applying new switching modes 15. The improvements in the electro-optical properties of LCs with the dispersion of different gust entities were presented recently. For example, Y. Dai et al. demonstrated that the incorporation of γ-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles into LCs results in a response time of 4.75 ms with the application of the overdriving scheme, which is three times faster than pure LCs 16. A response time of around 4 ms was obtained with the addition of a small amount of dye to a polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) or functionalized carbon nanotubes dispersed in optically isotropic LCs. However, in this case, the excellent response speed is valid only for operation at a relatively high voltage 17,18. Blue-phase LCs have a response time of 0.5 ms, but they still have drawbacks, such as hysteresis, high operation voltage, and narrow t...

A 4 mm-aperture hole-patterned liquid crystal (LC) lens has been fabricated using a LC mixture, which consisted of rutile titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NPs) and nematic LC E7, for the first time. The TiO2 NP dopant improves the addressing and operation voltages of the LC lens significantly because it strengthens the electric field surrounding the TiO2 NP and increases the capacitance of lens cell. Unlike the doping of common colloidal NPs, that of rutile TiO2 NPs increases the phase transition temperature and birefringence of the LC mixture, thereby helping enhance the lens power of LC lens. In comparison with a pure LC lens, the TiO2 NP-doped one has approximately 50% lower operation voltage because of the strengthened electric field around the NPs and has roughly 2.8 times faster response time because of the decreased rotational viscosity of the LC mixture and the increased interaction between the LC molecules by the NP dopants. Notably, the doping of rutile TiO2 NPs improves the operation voltage, tunable focusing capability, and response time of LC lens simultaneously. Meanwhile, this method does not degrade the focusing and lens qualities. The imaging performances of TiO2 NP-doped LC lens at various voltages are demonstrated practically by tunable focusing on three objectives at different positions. These results introduce NP in the application of LC lenses.

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In this study, a large-aperture hole-patterned liquid crystal (LHLC) lens was prepared from a mixture of nematic liquid crystal (NLC, E7) and organic material (N-benzyl-2-methyl-4-nitroaniline, BNA). The electro-optic properties of doped and undoped samples were measured, compared, and analyzed. The doped sample exhibited a response time that was ∼6 times faster than that of the undoped sample because BNA doping decreased the rotational viscosity of the NLC. BNA dopant effectively suppressed the RMS error of LHLC lens addressed at the high voltage. Furthermore, the BNA dopant revealed a considerable absorbance for short wavelengths (< 450 nm), automatically providing the LHLC lens with a blue light filtering function for ophthalmic applications.