TUNABLE CHIRAL MATERIALS FOR MULTICOLOR REFLECTIVE CHOLESTERIC DISPLAYS

A polymerizable tunable chiral material (TCM) has been prepared for th e fabrication of multicolour reflective cholesteric displays. This pho tosensitive chiral material, whose chirality is adjustable upon UV irr adiation, enables us to adjust the pitch of a cholesteric material and thus to produce the three reflected colours (red, green and blue) for a multicolour reflective cholesteric display. Furthermore, the possib ility of linking this compound to a polymer network helped to solve th e problem of colour diffusion. Reflection spectra of the corresponding cells show broad reflection peaks, because of scattering from the lar ge amount of polymerizable compound. We also report the difference of response under UV irradiation between this polymerizable tunable chira l material and a non-polymerizable material.