Improvement of Response Performance of Liquid Crystal Optical Devices by using a Low Viscosity Component

Difluorooxymethylene-bridged (CF₂O) liquid crystal (LC) with low viscosity is prepared and used as a fast response LC material. When the material is mixed with isothiocyanato LCs with high birefringence, the visco−elastic coefficient of the mixture decreases evidently and, accordingly, the response performance increases. While the concentration of CF₂O LCs is about 7%, the LC mixture approximately maintains high birefringence and exhibits a fastest response performance that is 14% higher than that of pure isothiocyanato LCs. Therefore, the LC material and mixing method could find useful applications in optical devices.