Full-color reflective display based on narrow bandwidth templated cholesteric liquid crystal film

We demonstrate narrow bandwidth templated cholesteric liquid crystal films. The reflection bandwidth of these films can be dramatically narrowed with the reduced birefringence of refilled materials. Different materials from liquid crystals with anisotropic refractive index to toluene with isotropic refractive index have been refilled to polymer scaffolds with helical structures which originate from the periodic arrangement of cholesteric liquid crystals. The temperature effect on the linewidth of the films is also studied. A full-color reflective display is experimentally demonstrated based on these flexible reflective films that are refilled with small birefringence liquid crystals. The applications of these flexible films include flexible reflective display, color pixels in digital photographs, printing and colored cladding of variety of objects. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America