Reflectance-enhanced liquid crystal displays and thermochromic multi-color patterning

This paper presents a reflective liquid crystal display (LCD) combined with thermochromic liquid crystal microcapsules to enhance the electro-optical performance of the LCD and to empower new driving modes. The prepared reflectance-enhanced liquid crystal display (Re-LCD) possesses a bilayer structure, with the upper layer being a polymer-stabilized liquid crystal layer prepared by UV-induced phase separation and the lower layer being a thermochromic layer prepared by coating with thermochromic liquid crystal microcapsules. The effect of chiral compound content on the reflection wavelength of liquid crystal center was investigated. After that, the effects of monomer ratio, polymerization time and spin coating speed on the electro-optical properties and morphology of Re-LCD were investigated comprehensively by three sets of experiments. The results show that the combination of LCD and thermochromic materials has a synergistic effect in display, and the prepared Re-LCD shows more than 51% reflectance compared with typical LCD. The multi-field driving function allows the Re-LCD to rapidly switch optical states by force, electric, and temperature fields and obtain multi-color patterns during the driving process. This provides new application possibilities for LCD.