Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystals: Boojums at Work

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. William Doane
Keyword(s):  
Refractive Index ◽  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Polarized Light ◽  
Solid Particles ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
The Other ◽  
Polymer Materials ◽  
Water Soluble Polymer ◽  
Polymer Dispersed

The idea of dispersing micron-size birefringent particles in a polymer to selectively scatter light is not new. In the 1930s Land patented a light polarizing material in which small, oriented solid crystallites were suspended in a clear polymer. The polymer material was selected so that its refractive index matched one of the principal refractive indices of the crystallites while the other did not. The resuit was a light polarizer tha t would pass one component of polarized light but scatter the other component out of the beam path.This idea was substantially expanded by the introduction of liquid crystals as the birefringent material. The orientation of the particles (in this case droplets), and hence the refractive index match and the scattering, could be controlled by an electric field. Such a material could be used as a light shutter for either unpolarized or polarized light. In the mid-1970s this basic concept was applied by Hilsum, but having no way to disperse droplets of liquid crystals in a polymer, he did the opposite and put optically isotropic solid particles in the birefringent liquid crystal.Although Hilsum demonstrated the concept, no commercial device was produced, probably because the shutter contrast was limited. Since then several ways have been found to disperse droplets in a polymer: filling the pores of a microfilter; emulsifying the liquid crystal in a water soluble polymer; and using phase separation methods to create a dispersion of droplets in non-aqueous polymer materials.

Infrared Microscopic Imaging of the Diffusion of Liquid Crystals into Thermoplastics

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (S2) ◽  
pp. 841-842
Author(s):  
Bentley G. Wall ◽  
Chris M. Snively ◽  
Jack L. Koenig
Keyword(s):  
Refractive Index ◽  
Optical Properties ◽  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Electric Field ◽  
Polymer Matrix ◽  
Thermoplastic Polymer ◽  
General Direction ◽  
Display Devices ◽  
Polymer Dispersed

Thermoplastic polymer/liquid crystal systems have found application in the generation of display devices known as thermoplastic, polymer dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs). These systems take advantage of the beneficial properties of both components to generate a device that has unique optical properties. The liquid crystal is dielectric and responds to an electric field. The polymer confines the liquid crystal so that the cells are closed. The two components are melted together until they are miscible. At lower temperatures, the two components phase separate. The liquid crystal component is the minor phase and takes the form of many tiny droplets contained within the major-phase, polymer matrix. An application of an electric field across these systems causes the liquid crystal within the droplets to align with the field. The systems are engineered such that when this alignment occurs there is no refractive index difference between the liquid crystal in the droplets and the polymer matrix, thus, the cells appear optically transparent. When there is no field applied, the liquid crystals in each droplet are aligned without respect to a general direction according to the surface energetics of each droplet/polymer interface. When this is the case, there is a refractive index mismatch between the droplets and the polymer and the cells are opaque. Research of these systems is aimed at improving the optical properties in order to facilitate the manufacturing of improved devices utilizing this technology. Because these systems are generated by a diffusion-controlled, phase separation process, understanding the relevant parameters, particularly the diffusion coefficients, should enable the manufacturing processes of these systems to be controlled more efficiently, generating improved optical properties.

scholarly journals Holographic Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystals: Materials, Formation, and Applications

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 ◽  
pp. 1-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. J. Liu ◽  
X. W. Sun
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Refractive Index Profile ◽  
Single Step ◽  
Fast Switching ◽  
Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal ◽  
Current State ◽  
Index Matching ◽  
Polymer Dispersed ◽  
Materials Used

By combining polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) and holography, holographic PDLC (H-PDLC) has emerged as a new composite material for switchable or tunable optical devices. Generally, H-PDLC structures are created in a liquid crystal cell filled with polymer-dispersed liquid crystal materials by recording the interference pattern generated by two or more coherent laser beams which is a fast and single-step fabrication. With a relatively ideal phase separation between liquid crystals and polymers, periodic refractive index profile is formed in the cell and thus light can be diffracted. Under a suitable electric field, the light diffraction behavior disappears due to the index matching between liquid crystals and polymers. H-PDLCs show a fast switching time due to the small size of the liquid crystal droplets. So far, H-PDLCs have been applied in many promising applications in photonics, such as flat panel displays, switchable gratings, switchable lasers, switchable microlenses, and switchable photonic crystals. In this paper, we review the current state-of-the-art of H-PDLCs including the materials used to date, the grating formation dynamics and simulations, the optimization of electro-optical properties, the photonic applications, and the issues existed in H-PDLCs.

scholarly journals Aligning lyotropic liquid crystals with unconventional organic layers

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Otón ◽  
Morten Andreas Geday ◽  
Caterina Maria Tone ◽  
José Manuel Otón ◽  
Xabier Quintana
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Chem Phys ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Lyotropic Liquid Crystals ◽  
Sunset Yellow ◽  
Lab On Chip ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Homeotropic Alignment ◽  
Alignment Layers

Lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLC) are a kind of LCs far less known and more difficult to control than conventional thermotropic nematics. Nevertheless, LCLCs are a preferred option -often the only one- for applications where hydrophilic materials must be employed. Being water-soluble, LCLC can be used in numerous biology related devices, for example in target detection in lab-on-chip devices. However, their properties and procedures to align them are still less explored, with only a very limited number of options available, especially for homeotropic alignment. In this work, novel organic alignment layers and alignment properties have been explored for selected LCLCs. Non-conventional organic alignment layers were tested and new suitable procedures and materials for both homogeneous and homeotropic alignments have been found. Full Text: PDF ReferencesS.L. Hefinstine, O.D. Lavrentovich, C.J. Woolverton, "Lyotropic liquid crystal as a real-time detector of microbial immune complexes", Lett. Appl. Microbiol. 43, 27 (2006). CrossRef M.A. Geday, M. Ca-o-García, J.M. Escolano, E. Otón, J.M. Otón, X. Quintana, Conference on Liquid Crystals CLC'16, Poland (2016).M.A. Geday, E. Otón, J.M. Escolano, J.M. Otón, X. Quintana, Patent WO 2015193525 (2015). DirectLink Yu.A. Nastishin et al., "Optical characterization of the nematic lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals: Light absorption, birefringence, and scalar order parameter", Phys. Rev. E, 72 (4) 41711 (2005). CrossRef A. Mcguire, et al., "Orthogonal Orientation of Chromonic Liquid Crystals by Rubbed Polyamide Films", Chem. Phys. Chem. 15 (7) (2014). CrossRef J. Jeong, et al., "Homeotropic Alignment of Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystals Using Noncovalent Interactions", Langmuir 30(10) 2914 (2014). CrossRef J.Y. Kim, H.-Tae Jung, "Macroscopic alignment of chromonic liquid crystals using patterned substrates", Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 18, 10362 (2016). CrossRef E. Otón, J.M. Escolano, X. Quintana, J.M. Otón, M.A. Geday, "Aligning lyotropic liquid crystals with silicon oxides", Liq. Cryst. 42 (8) 1069 (2015). CrossRef H.S. Park, et al., "Condensation of Self-Assembled Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystal Sunset Yellow in Aqueous Solutions Crowded with Polyethylene Glycol and Doped with Salt", Langmuir 27, 4164 (2011). CrossRef H.S. Park, et al., "Self-Assembly of Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystal Sunset Yellow and Effects of Ionic Additives", J. Phys. Chem. B 112, 16307 (2008). CrossRef R Caputo et al., "POLICRYPS: a liquid crystal composed nano/microstructure with a wide range of optical and electro-optical applications", J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 11, 024017 (2009). CrossRef

Pattern Formation During the Growth of Liquid Crystal Phases

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Oswald ◽  
John Bechhoefer ◽  
Francisco Melo
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Unit Vector ◽  
The Other ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Smectic A ◽  
Anisotropic Plastic ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
Crystal Phases ◽  
Columnar Mesophases

Liquid crystals, discovered just a century ago, have wide application to electrooptic displays and thermography. Their physical properties have also made them fascinating materials for more fundamental research.The name “liquid crystals” is actually a misnomer for what are more properly termed “mesophases,” that is, phases having symmetries intermediate between ordinary solids and liquids. There are three major classes of liquid crystals: nematics, smectics, and columnar mesophases. In nematics, although there is no correlation between positions of the rodlike molecules, the molecules tend to lie parallel along a common axis, labeled by a unit vector (or director) n. Smectics are more ordered. The molecules are also rodlike and are in layers. Different subtypes of smectics (labeled, for historical reasons, smectic A, smectic B,…) have layers that are more or less organized. In the smectic A phase, the layers are fluid and can glide easily over each other. In the smectic B phase, the layers have hexagonal ordering and strong interlayer corrélations. Indeed, the smectic B phase is more a highly anisotropic plastic crystal than it is a liquid crystal. Finally, columnar mesophases are obtained with disklike molecules. These molecules can stack up in columns which are themselves organized in a two-dimensional array. There is no positional correlation between molecules in one column and molecules in the other columns.

scholarly journals Electrically Controlled Diffraction Grating in Azo Dye-Doped Liquid Crystals

Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuen-Lin Tien ◽  
Rong-Ji Lin ◽  
Chi-Chung Kang ◽  
Bing-Yau Huang ◽  
Chie-Tong Kuo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Electric Fields ◽  
Azo Dye ◽  
Nematic Liquid Crystals ◽  
Polarized Light ◽  
Dielectric Anisotropy ◽  
Linear Effect ◽  
Periodic Distribution ◽  
The Difference

This research applies the non-linear effect of azo dye-doped liquid crystal materials to develop a small, simple, and adjustable beam-splitting component with grating-like electrodes. Due to the dielectric anisotropy and optical birefringence of nematic liquid crystals, the director of the liquid crystal molecules can be reoriented by applying external electric fields, causing a periodic distribution of refractive indices and resulting in a diffraction phenomenon when a linearly polarized light is introduced. The study also discusses the difference in the refractive index (Δn), the concentration of azo dye, and the rising constant depending on the diffraction signals. The experimental results show that first-order diffraction efficiency can reach ~18% with 0.5 wt % azo dye (DR-1) doped in the nematic liquid crystals.

Strong CPL of achiral liquid crystal fluorescent polymer via the regulation of AIE-active chiral dopant

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (84) ◽  
pp. 12829-12832
Author(s):  
Kerui Liu ◽  
Yihao Shen ◽  
Xiaojing Li ◽  
Yu Zhang ◽  
Yiwu Quan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Crystal ◽  
Liquid Crystals ◽  
Cholesteric Liquid Crystals ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Polymer Dispersed ◽  
Fluorescent Polymer ◽  
Ternary Polymer

Strong CPL induced by ternary polymer dispersed cholesteric liquid crystals (PD-CLCs) can deliver a new strategy for designing excellent CPL materials.

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