Photo-responsive nematic mixtures enabling drastic tuning of ε

Abstract

A polar nematic phase with anomalously large dielectric anisotropy over 10000 appears in a fluorinated liquid crystal bearing a 1,3-dioxane unit (DIO). The magnitude of Δε is extremely larger than that of conventional nematics; DIO has vast potential for innovative applications by proactive use of its gigantic polarization properties. In this work, we dope a photo-responsive material to DIO, resulting in drastic changes in dielectric permittivity between 10000 and 100 in the polar nematic phase according to alternating irradiation of UV (365 nm) and VIS (480 nm) lights. Such a wide photo-tunablity of dielectric permittivity with a fluidic nature may make it possible to realize epoch-making devices like a flexible photo-tunable capacitor, a fluidic photo-transducer, or so forth.