Properties of UV curable smectic liquid crystals

Abstract

We have developed novel UV curable liquid crystals having isotropic - nematic - smectic A phase sequence and studied the photoinitiated polymerization of the liquid crystals at the state of their uniaxially oriented smectic A phase at room temperature. The optical phase retardation of the smectic A layer decreases rapidly just after the initiation of photopolymerization and decreases gradually after that. The constant value of the optical phase retardation was obtained by the aging at 150℃ for 20 minutes after photopolymerization. The polymerized film is optically uniaxial and transparent without light scattering.