Investigation of Polymer Stabilized Liquid Crystal Formation Using Fluorinated and Aliphatic Monoacrylates

摘要

This study focuses on the photo-polymerization of a fluorinated monoacrylate monomer and aliphatic analog within a room temperature smectic liquid crystal (LC) in an effort to understand how factors such as LC order, monomer segregation, and monomer chemical structure affects the polymerization mechanism in polymer stabilized liquid crystalline systems (PSLC). Specifically, a fluorinated monoacrylate exhibits significantly enhanced polymerization rates when compared to an aliphatic monoacrylate. Moreover, this rate enhancement is particularly pronounced in the smectic phase of the LC, where the fluorinated monoacrylate displays a polymerization rate in the smectic phase that is over three times faster than the aliphatic monoacrylate in the smectic phase. Also the fluorinated monoacrylate exhibits enhanced segregation between the smectic layers of the LC both before and after polymerization, whereas the aliphatic monoacrylate phase separates during polymerization. The results of this study demonstrate how changes in the monomer chemical structure (i.e. fluorination) can significantly impact the polymerization mechanism and segregation in polymer stabilized systems. This study also offers the potential to further the understanding of tailoring these unique systems for display applications.