Reflective Bistable Chiral Splay Nematic Liquid Crystal for Low-Power Heat Sensor.

The memory effect of the bistable liquid crystal mode is able to maintain the display information for a long time. The splay state and π twist states are used as the memory states of the bistable chiral splay nematic (BCSN) mode. The transition time from the π twist state to the splay state is sensitive to the temperature. In this paper, for the heat sensor application, the reflective structure of the BCSN mode has been studied by the Jones matrix method. In experiments, the measured contrast ratio can be over 200 with a minimal reflective structure including a single polarizer and a reflector.