Electron microscopy of a cholesteric liquid crystal and its blue phase

Abstract

We report the successful application of the freeze fracture technique for obtaining transmission-electron-microscope pictures of a thermotropic cholesteric material and its blue phase. It is shown that under rapid quenching these phases supercool and conserve their structure at liquid-${\mathrm{N}}_{2}$ temperature. The micrographs obtained confirm the body-centered-cubic symmetry of the blue phase I.