No abstract

In this work, the electro-optical properties of PDLC films based on Thiolene monomer crosslinked with Pluronic polymer are presented. The alteration in flexibility and the solubility of Thiolene matrix in polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films in terms of surface morphology, electro-optical variations and changes in glass transition temperatures are investigated. PDLC films were fabricated by polymer induced phase separation (PIPS) method, in which a mixture of thiol-ene-based monomer is crosslinked with Pluronic polymer with different weight ratios. Various properties of resulting PDLC devices have been studied by different experimental techniques. The droplet size variations have been found through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which exhibited an increase in droplet sizes with the insertion of L31-Pluronic®. Besides this, it showed a decrease in threshold voltage, increase in the contrast ratio, and a decrease in T g with addition of higher contents of L31-polymer. This indicated a weakening in the unbending nature of polymer network with the addition of L-31.