Research on Non-Electric Readout Infrared Thermal Imaging Detection Technology Based on the Liquid Crystal

Liquid crystal, as a condensed matter, is a phase state between crystal and isotropic liquid. On the one hand, it has mobility and continuity as a liquid, and on the other hand, it has arranging ordering as a crystal, then it has many unique properties. Because the factors, such as heat, electric field, magnetic field, pressure, and so on, will easily influence the arranging of liquid crystal molecular, so once it is excited externally, its optical properties will be changed. At present, most research on the theory and application of liquid crystal mainly focus on the display. Thermo-optic effect is defined as the phenomenon that the optical properties of liquid crystal change with the changing of temperature. At the phase transition point, the thermo-optic effect of liquid crystal is very obvious. In this paper, non-electric readout infrared thermal imaging detection technology based on the optical rotation property of the cholesteric liquid crystals is mainly researched. Through the research, the cholesteric liquid crystals’ light curves, gray value curves and CCD image were obtained under different temperatures; it proved that using the optical rotation property of cholesteric liquid crystals to achieve the infrared imaging of hot objects is possible.