High-solubility liquid crystal dye guest-host device

摘要

In this paper we investigate a dye guest-host liquid crystal device based upon the bistable electro-optic effect in the smectic A phase. The dye used is a pentamethyldisiloxane-grafted disperse red 1 moiety; the liquid crystal host is an organosiloxane liquid crystal based upon cyanobiphenyl. It is shown that extremely high dye solubilities can be achieved e.g. greater than 38 % w/w, without dye separation or adverse effect on device electro-optic properties. The typical solubility limit in liquid crystals is of the order of several percent. It is proposed that the beneficial degree of dye accommodation is the result of microsegregation of constituent moieties into siloxane, alkyl chain and cyanobiphenyl core/chromophore regions.