Observation of blue phase in chiral nematic liquid crystal and its stabilization by silica nanoparticles

In the present work, we report the blue phase (BP) in a binary mixture of cholesteryl nonanoate (CN) and N-(4-ethoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline (EBBA). The mixture exhibits BP over a temperature range of 2.3 K at optimum composition (50:50) of liquid crystals (LCs). The effect of silica nanoparticles (SNPs) doping on thermal stability of BPs has also been demonstrated and nearly 6 K wide BP temperature range was achieved at 0.5 wt.% of SNPs. A porous type texture was also observed during the BP formation process in the doped samples.