Photomodulation of liquid crystals using hydrazone-based chiral dopants

For the past few years we have been developing structurally simple, easy to make, modular, and tunable hydrazone-based functional materials.¹ This presentation will deal with our recent advances with these systems, with an emphasis on newly developed photochromic chiral dopants² that can be used in tuning and locking-in the selective color reflection from liquid crystal surfaces,³ including ferroelectric ones, turning them into photoresponsive and reusable multi-color displays. 1. B. Shao, I. Aprahamian Chem 2020, 6, 2161–2173. 2. H. Qian, S. Pramanik, I. Aprahamian J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 9140−9143 3. I. Bala, J. T. Plank, B. Balamut, D. Henry, A. R. Lippert, I. Aprahamian, Nature Chem. 2024, 16, 2084–2090