1.
Appl Opt
; 41(25): 5362-6, 2002 Sep 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-12211565
ABSTRACT
Polymer cholesteric liquid-crystal flakes suspended in a fluid with nonnegligible conductivity can exhibit motion in the presence of an ac electric field. The plateletlike particles with a Grandjean texture initially lie parallel to the cell substrates and exhibit a strong selective reflection that is diminished or extinguished as the flakes move. Flake motion was seen within a specific frequency bandwidth in an electric field as low as 5 mV(rms)/microm. Flakes reoriented about their longest axis to align parallel to theapplied field, and a rise time of 560 ms was seen in a 40-mV(rms)/microm field at 100 Hz.