Optically Reconfigurable Charge-Transfer Liquid Crystals

Since the rise of liquid crystal displays (LCDs), organic liquid crystals have emerged as a versatile class of molecular materials with applications such as display technology, smart authentication, and data storage and retrieval. Most modern-day applications employ calamitic-type LCs; however, a sub-class of columnar phase liquid crystals, also known as charge-transfer (CT) liquid crystals, exhibits intense and broadly tunable charge-transfer absorbance in the visible near-infrared reflectance.