Effect of chirality on the structural and topological features of quantum dot doped blue phase liquid crystal

The proposal aims to investigate the effect of chirality on the structure and topology of 3D soft photonic crystals based on blue phase liquid crystal. The blue phase (BP) is thermally stabilized by the inclusion of quantum dots (QD) and a gelator. Low chirality drives cubic molecular arrangement (BPI /BPII), with a lattice spacing of 100-400 nm, leading to soft photonic crystals operating in the visible regime, and high chirality induces amorphous BP (BPIII). Thermal and electric field-dependent X-ray scattering studies in the ultra-small and wide-angle regimes (USAXS / WAXS) are expected to elucidate the nano and sub-micron structures formed due to the interactions between the gelator and QD, whereas the X-ray Photon Correlation Spectroscopy (XPCS), the structural dynamics. Additionally, the lattice arrangement with a tunable photonic band gap in BPI/BPII, and the structural aspects governing BPIII for optimum electro-optic parameters would be discerned.