Polymer‐induced improvements in ferroelectric liquid crystal

Abstract The chevron geometry in the SmC* phase of ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLC) has been a major obstacle in the use of FLC in displays as it results in poor electro‐optical performance. The present paper reports a novel method to overcome this problem, by doping a small amount of polymer in the FLC matrix. In addition to the improvement in smectic ordering, polymer doping is also found to be useful in improving the vital electro‐optical properties. The various electro‐optical parameters like switching time, tilt angle, contrast ratio etc. show improvement in polymer mixed guest host mixture of FLC samples. POLYM. COMPOS., 31:1776–1781, 2010. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers.