Polymer-dispersed cholesteric liquid crystals - challenge for research and application

Abstract
Polymer dispersed cholesteric liquid crystals are a new class of systems which might be suitable for application in colored electrooptic displays. For materials with negative dielelectric anisotropy and with sufficiently short pitch it is possible to induce a texture showing bright selective reflection by application of ac electric fields. We give a summary of the basic experimental results on these new systems.