Electrochromic Smart Materials: Fabrication and Applications

This chapter discusses some recent developments of liquid crystal science in the field of electrochromic and electrofluorochromic materials. Liquid crystals are a condensed state of molecules which exhibit some properties of the solid state and some properties of the liquid state, thus combining order and dynamics. These properties can be advantageously used to develop new advanced functional materials which combine and integrate different properties. Specifically, here we show that the integration of the mesomorphic behavior with key functionalities such redox-active, electronic charge mobility, ion conductivity, and photoluminescence is a very promising approach for the design of electrochromic and electrofluorochromic materials able to work in single layer devices in the bulk liquid crystalline phase.