Flexible, easy-to-produce, gradient distributed pitch broadband infrared reflectors with polymer-stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals.

[Display omitted] In this study, we propose a simpler method to fabricate single-layer polymer cholesteric films with reflective bandwidth over 1500 nm instead of the previous multilayer films. We add polymerizable chiral compounds and non-polymerizable chiral compounds with the same rotation direction into the liquid crystal mixing system. Due to the presence of photoinitiators and UV-absorbing dyes, when UV light irradiates the polymerization, the polymerizable monomers, including the polymerizable chiral compounds, are rapidly polymerized in the near-light side, and the non-polymerizable monomers, including the non-polymerizable chiral compounds and partial monoacrylate monomers, do diffusion movement towards the far-light side, and after the anchoring action of the polymer network, the formation of the small-large-small pitch gradient distribution is realized, which results in the broadband reflection. In the paper, the effect of multiple factors on the reflection broadband of the film is explored, and the polymer-stabilized cholesteric liquid crystal (PSCLC) film with a reflection bandwidth of 1572 nm is successfully prepared, which is demonstrated to have many desirable properties, including thinness and flexibility. The flexible CLC films reported in this study are expected to be promising prospects for several applications such as shielding infrared devices, energy-efficient windows for automobiles, and modern building facades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]