title: Stability of cholesteric blue phases in the presence of a guest component.
abstract: We investigate theoretically, with the aid of numerical calculations based on a Landau-de Gennes theory, how two cubic cholesteric blue phases of a chiral liquid crystal, BP I and BP II, are stabilized when a guest component, such as a polymer network, is introduced and replace energetically costly defect regions. We show that the temperature range of stable BP I is significantly widened by the guest component, while the stability of BP II is only modestly enhanced.
authors.affiliation: Nanosystem Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan. fukuda.jun-ichi@aist.go.jp
authors.forename: Jun-ichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fukuda