Engineering the Uniform Lying Helical Structure in Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals: From Morphology Transition to Dimension Control

Chiral nematic liquid crystals (CLCs), with a unique helix structure, have attracted immense recognition over the last few decades owing to abundant presence in natural phenomena and their diverse applications. However, optical properties of CLC are usually hindered by abundance so-called fingerprint domains. Up now, studies worked on controlling in-plane orientation lying through surface rubbing external stimuli. It remains challenging achieve steady uniform helical structure. Here, varying anchoring strength, structure long-range order is achieved as thermodynamically stable state without any support. Poly (6-(4-methoxy-azobenzene-4’-oxy) hexyl methacrylate) (PMMAZO)—a crystalline polymer—is deposited onto silicon substrate fine-tune anchoring. By changing grafting density PMMAZO, both pitch size morphology can be controlled. As increases, enhanced titled deformation suppresses at same cell thickness; thickness transition from stripes small domains facilitated.