An electrically switchable viewing angle device based on dichroic dyes doped polymer stabilized liquid crystals

Accompanying with the fast development of modern technologies, computers and cellphones are applied in people’s work and life, which brings more convenience and fun. However, due to the wide viewing angle (WVA) characteristic of these electronic products, people can be peered by others when they glaze over the materials, which leads to the leakage of personal privacy and commercial secrets. Consequently, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) simultaneously with narrow viewing angle (NVA) characteristic are needed to avoid the risk of secret leakage, thus electrically switchable viewing angle devices are attracting considerable attention because of the information protection. Herein, we have developed an electrically switchable viewing angle device that fabricated by dichroic dyes doped polymer stabilized cholesteric liquid crystals (DD-PSCLCs). By fixing the pitch of CLCs at the infrafed light region, when CLCs are at the planar state, the device is transparent at zero field. When applying the electric field, CLCs are switched to the focal conic texture, thus the device is scattered. Therefore, the fabricated device can make the viewing angle of LCDs electrically switchable between WVA mode and NVA mode by small voltage, which makes contribution to privacy protection.