The isotropic temperature of synthesized cholecteric LC derivatives are usually high.
Is there any way to produce cholesteric LC's with lower isotropic temperature?
As a variant, to use 1) mixtures of LCs or 2) LC+non-mesogenic dopants (with sufficient solubility in LC).
You can refer to the following journals,
New J Chem-TGBC-2012-36-918-926; JPCB-2011-115-10849-59
You can use 4-cyanobiphenyl systems in mixture studies or optimal balance of aliphatic and rigid segments.
Generally speaking, any measure that lowers the strength of the intermolecular potential contributing to the Maier-Saupe mean field will affect T_NI. Mixing with another mesogenic or non-mesogenic molecule as pointed out above will do the job. Indeed, solubility must be ensured, which is usually the case for structurally similar molecules at low concentrations.
Dispersing nano-particles with sufficient attractive interactions would be another option; this will both lower and widen the phase transition.
See e.g. "Blue phase III widening in CE6-dispersed surface-functionalised CdSe nanoparticles...", by Cordoyiannis, George, Losada-Perez, Patricia, Tripathi, Chandra Shekhar Pati, et al., Liquid Crystals vol:37 issue:11 pages:1419-1426, 2010
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