A cholesteric liquid crystal smart window with a low operating voltage

A dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystal smart window with a haze-free opaque state is demonstrated. We designed a random stripe pattern in the cholesteric phase, known as the fingerprint (FP) texture, as an initial state (opaque state). In the theoretical calculation of the LC alignment states, although the transmittance of the FP state is slightly higher than that of the twisted state (planar state), it is much lower than homogeneously aligned states. Moreover, we confirmed the proposed LC cell shows the lowest operating voltage (4 V) among guest-host liquid crystal cells because of vertical anchoring at the surfaces.