Patent ID: 6338807
Filing Date: 2002-01-15
Classification: B29C,B82Y,C09B,C09D,C09K,E06B,F24S,G02B,G02F,Y02E,Y10T

Abstract:
A cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC)-based coloring media for application to the surface of a substrate and producing color effects within the vision system of a human viewer having improved brightness and color characteristics over the color effects produced by conventional absorptive pigment-based and dye-based colorants, said CLC-based coloring media comprising:an optically transparent carrier medium capable of being applied to a substrate; and a distribution of reflective flakes suspended within said optically transparent carrier medium, wherein each said reflective flake in said distribution thereof is made from a solid-state cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) material having CLC molecules that are arranged in a helical structure having a helical axis substantially perpendicular to the surface of said reflective flakes, and a helical pitch characteristics which impart spectrally-tuned reflection characteristics to each said reflective flake over the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum so that circularly polarized light within said visible band falling incident upon a coating of said coloring media, applied to said substrate, reflects from said coating to produces color effects within the vision system of a human viewer which have improved brightness and color characteristics over the color effects produced by conventional absorptive pigment-based and dye-based colorants, wherein each said reflective flake comprises a laminate of left-handed and right-handed layers of CLC-based material in order to provide said reflective flakes having notch-filter reflection characteristics.