Influence of Curing Frequency on the Morphology and the Electro-Optical Property of Polymer-Stabilized Cholesteric Textures

Abstract

The effect of curing frequency on the morphology of polymer networks and the electrooptical property of normal-mode polymer-stabilized cholesteric textures (PSCTs) has been investigated. The scanning electron microscopy indicates that the shape of polymer networks transforms from honeycomb-like to fiber-like due to the increased solubility of the monomer at higher curing frequencies. The PSCTs cured at lower frequencies with sufficiently large network voids show a two-stage reorientation process that correlates with two kinds of cholesteric liquid crystal (LC) under different environments. The threshold voltage decreases as the curing frequency increases from 1 Hz to 10,000 Hz, while the field-off response time increases.

P‐181: Enhancing the Bragg‐Reflection by Blending Ag Nanoparticles in Polymer Stabilized Cholesteric Liquid Crystals

“…Moreover, the polymer network in PSCLCs increases the resistance of CLCs in response to external stimuli over a much wider range of reflection wavelengths and lays the foundation for subsequent studies of flexible PSCLC devices [2][3]. The topology of the polymer network formed by reactive mesogens determines the electro-optical switching performance of CLCs, and generally the performance of PSCLCs is optimized by changing the doping concentration of reactive mesogens, UV exposing intensity and time [4][5][6][7]. In addition to the aforementioned advantages, polymer networks in PSCLCs reduce the reflection intensity due to their refractive index difference from CLCs, and the reduction of the reflection intensity in intense polymer networks increases considerably.…”