誘電アクチュエータへの応用を指向した高分子安定化ブルー相の開発

抄録

The practical application of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) requires a reduction in drive voltage. In our previous study, DEAs with lower drive voltage than conventional materials were developed by the formation of gel elastomers composed of liquid crystals showing a large dielectric constant and polymer networks., However the response to an electric field was found to be slow due to non-uniform phase separation between the polymer and liquid crystal. It is known that polymer-stabilized blue phase (PSBP) forms periodic phase separation of polymers in 100 nm scale. In this study, we fabricated PSBPs using liquid crystals with large dielectric constants and investigated their DEA properties.