Stabilization of slippery interfaces by polymerization in azo doped ferroelectric liquid crystals

Abstract

We stabilized the liquid slippery interfaces after turning off UV irradiation in a wide temperature range by photo polymerization of bifunctional monomers to form gel interfaces. The electro-optical response of azo doped ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) with liquid interfaces and FLCs with gel interfaces was measured and compared. The transmittance of FLCs with liquid slippery interfaces decreased with decreasing temperature. In contrast, FLCs with gel interfaces by polymerization maintained the high transmittance over a wide temperature range below SmA-SmC* transition temperature after turning off UV irradiation. These results indicate that the gel interfaces not only keep the phase separated domain stably like solids on the macroscopic scale but also behave as liquid interfaces on the microscopic scale.