Effect of Monomer Structures and Polymerization Temperature on Characteristics of Polymer Stabilized Isotropic Liquid Crystal

摘要

Polymer/liquid crystals (LC) composite films have attracted increasing interest over the last years due to wide application range from switchable window to information display. Based on the morphologies, two types of liquid crystal polymer dispersions have been developed. The first type is the polymer dispersed liquid crystals (PDLC), in which LC droplets dispersed in polymer matrix; the second type is the polymer stabilized liquid crystal (PSLC), in which LC becomes continuous phase and three-dimensional polymer networks are dispersed in liquid crystals. In this study, we fabricate UV-curable PSLC with different curing temperature, which is called polymer stabilized isotropic liquid crystal (PSI mode LC). As is well known, isotropic LC has advanced optical properties such as no birefringence effect, no residual optical retardation and no light leak. Herein, we have chosen different combination of mono-functional monomers and bi-functional monomers to prepare mixtures, and effect of monomer structures and polymerization conditions on the electro-optical properties of polymer stabilized isotropic LC are investigated, each exhibits different influences in microstructures, in turn the electro-optical properties of PSI mode LC films.