Electrically reconfigurable and thermally sensitive optical properties of gold nanorods dispersed liquid crystal blue phase

Abstract

We report the electrically reconfigurable optical properties of gold nanorods (AuNRs) dispersed liquid crystal blue phase (BP). In principle, dispersing gold nanorods in a BP should not possess a critical concentration of the dispersant at the nanoscale, because the free-energy cost of disclination is negligible. Yet, the experimental results indicate that BP range reaches a plateau at a critical concentration of AuNRs. The mesophase range of the pure BP studied by polarizing optical microscopy is theoretically validated. The optical property of an AuNRs dispersed BP system is electrically and thermally reconfigurable.