Doping liquid crystals with chiral molecular motors enables photocontrolling the period and handedness of the cholesteric helices which are formed. These systems hold great potential for applications, but controlling their rate of relaxation remains a challenge. Here, we show that relaxation of the cholesteric helix is fully determined by helix inversion of the dopants. As thermal helix inversion in molecular motors has been optimised, our results evidence that relaxation of phototunable cholesterics can be dramatically accelerated also.

Time-programmed helix inversion in phototunable liquid crystals

245th National Meeting (2013)

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