Broad temperature range ferrielectric liquid crystal as a new generation quadratic electro-optical material

Polar liquid crystal mesophases are of great interest from both fundamental and applied perspectives. Ferrielectric liquid crystals encompass various polar mesophases, the common drawback of which is the narrow temperature range of existence (within 10 °C) and high melting temperatures (above 60 °C). This paper presents a ferroelectric liquid crystal mixture with a mesophase existence range from -3 °C to +47 °C. It is shown that this mixture is currently the lowest-voltage quadratic liquid crystal electro-optic medium, with a Kerr orientation effect coefficient reaching 1500 nm/V2. Thus, based on the presented mixture, it is possible to create electro-optically controllable half-wave plates with a control voltage of approximately 1.3 V and electro-optic response times of 150 μs.