Band-edge liquid crystal lasers are of interest for a number of applications including laser projection displays. Herein, we demonstrate simultaneous red-green-blue lasing from a single liquid crystal sample by creating a two-dimensional laser array fabricated from dye-doped chiral nematic liquid crystals. By forming a pitch gradient across the cell, and optically pumping the sample using a lenslet array, a polychromatic laser array can be observed consisting simultaneously of red-green-blue colors. Specifically, the two-dimensional polychromatic array could be used to produce a laser-based display, with low speckle and wide color gamut, whereby no complex fabrication procedure is required to generate the individual 'pixels'.
We report a novel type of electro-optical switching in a tilted smectic phase of bent-shaped mesogens. The switching consists of a continuous stage and two bistable transitions. Detailed optical and electro-optical measurements using high-speed imaging are given and possible interpretations of the experimental results are discussed.
New asymmetric four-ring bent-core compounds derived from N-benzoylpiperazine are presented. The mesophases were characterized by polarizing microscopy, DSC, X-ray diffraction, dielectric, electrooptical and SHG measurements. In some homologues the SmA as well as SmC phase can be transformed into a polar structure by applying an electric field. It was found for the first time that the polar SmI phase shows a ferroelectric switching which is obviously based on the collective rotation of the bent molecules around their long axes. It is remarkable that the ferroelectric structure is preserved on cooling into the solid state.
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