Electroresponsive Stretchable Liquid‐Crystal Device with Deformable Gel Network

Abstract

meet the requirement of bend or fold in most situations. But some devices like biomimetic epidermal electronics or implantable electronic devices need to adapt the large complex deformation of skins or biological tissues, which cause the idea that stretch ability is regarded as a key factor of designing devices. [10] And in the area of liquid display, traditional liquid crystal (LC) materials have been used in our life for so long time, but they could not be universally used in the deformable devices owing to their natural properties of flow and orderliness, and they are far more likely to flow to everywhere with no fixed shape and show cluttered arrangement mode influenced by external force, much less the application in stretchable devices.To overcome this weakness of LC mole cules, gelators are added to firm the LC molecules' shapes through 3D gel net work, finally developing a new special kind of soft materials which exhibit both LC materials' advantages and gels' unique natures including flowability, mechanical behavior, heat stability, and so on. Considering LC materials have diverse stim uliresponsive properties [11][12][13] and many device applications such as LC gratings, [14] polymerstabilized blue phase (PSBP) I film, [15] or multiresponsive composite films, [16] the combina tion of LC materials and gels will help create more possibili ties to prepare multifunctional materials and devices. Previous study results [17] have shown that LC gel would produce vast transmittance differences through the transformation between light scattering and light transmission by LC molecules' stim uliresponsive properties such as photoresponse, electrore sponse, temperature response, and magnetic response. [14,[18][19][20][21][22] And this method could greatly simplify the LC devices' struc ture by abandoning the use of Polaroid. For example, Jang and coworkers [23] reported a light scattering display using dendritic physical gel. Kato and coworkers [24][25][26] had prepared various rigid light scattering cells. Levy and coworkers [27] made a huge and rigid electrooptical window based on liquidcrystal disper sions in sol-gel matrices. Xie and coworkers [28] prepared LC gels through the selfassembly of sorbitol derivatives as gela tors in 5CB, showing its potential application in selfsupporting lightscattering electrooptical displays. Zhao and coworkers [29,30] reported a fluorescent LC gels and shown a high contrast of photoluminescence. In general, these light scattering LC devices all present rigid condition and have the features of A stretchable, flexible electroresponsive liquid-crystal (LC) device with extremely simple structure is reported. It exhibits excellent light-transmission control even during successive 45% stretching, which is due to the combination of a super-strong LC gel network (5CB/POSS-G1-BOC) and transparent conductive electrodes composed of silver nanowires (AgNWs) embedded in polyurethane (PU). The uniaxial tensile deformation mechanism of the gel network is also explained by the uniform distributi...

Intrinsically flexible displays: key materials and devices

“…Tong et al . developed an electroresponsive, stretchable LC device with a deformable gel network [ 94 ]. The stretchable LC device consisted of a super-strong LC gel network (5CB/POSS-G1-BOC) and transparent conductive electrodes that were prepared by embedding AgNWs in a PU matrix.…”

Synthesis, properties and applications of well‐designed hybrid polymers based on polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane

“…In addition, the POSS‐Lys can be used in stretchable electro‐responsive devices 85 . The device uses transparent flexible stretchable conductive films (polyurethane/silver nanowires, PU/AgNWs) as the upper and lower electrode layers, while POSS‐based liquid crystal gel is the middle display layer to form a sandwich structure.…”

Muscle-Mimetic Highly Tough, Conductive, and Stretchable Poly(ionic liquid) Liquid Crystalline Ionogels with Ultrafast Self-Healing, Super Adhesive, and Remarkable Shape Memory Properties

“…Significant attempts have been done to improve the strength and toughness of the ionogels. However, some typical problems, such as the complicated preparation process, too many components, low ionic conductivity, and poor transmittance, may greatly limit their practical applications. − Recently, a liquid crystalline ionogel with highly ordered structures based on rigid-rod polyelectrolyte with high ionic conductivity (up to 8 mS/cm), and high and tunable modulus (0.03–3 GPa) has been successfully prepared by using a simple method, which offers a bright avenue for preparing novel high performance ionogels that combines the advantages of ionogels and liquid crystalline ordered structures …”