Uniform alignment of chiral smectic C elastomers induced by mechanical shear field

摘要

Up to now, liquid crystalline elastomers;have been strenuously studied to obtain high orientation induced by mechanical fields. It is known that a uniaxial mechanical field is sufficient to obtain macroscopically uniform alignment for nematic and smectic A liquid crystalline elastomers having uniaxial symmetry. Here the orientation mechanism of biaxial smectic C* elastomers; in mechanical shear fields has been investigated, A significant influence of a shear field on the orientation of the smectic C* elastomer is confirmed. In addition, we succeeded in obtaining a monodomain sample of the smectic C* elastomer by this process. References: 20