The analyses of stabilizing behavior of the blue phases by in-situ photopolymerization method

Abstract

Blue phases exist in a very narrow temperature range, usually less than a few Kelvin. Recently, the temperature range of blue phases was successfully extended to more than 100 K in the polymer/liquid crystal(blue phase) composite systems, referred to as "polymer-stabilized blue phases", which were prepared by in situ photopolymerization of monomers in monomers/photoinitiator/low-molecular-weight liquid crystals mixture solutions in a blue phase state. In this study, we investigated the influence of the chemical structure of the photocurablemonomer on the stability of polymer-stabilized blue phases. We also evaluated the relation between the polymerization time and the temperature range of blue phase.