Liquid Crystal Molecular Alignment Effect by Liquid Crystalline Polymer Networks

Abstract

Polymer stabilized liquid crystal cells using a mixture of a nematic liquid crystal(NLC) and photo-curable liquid crystalline monomer have been successfully fabricated. The conformation of the photo-cured polymer network is determined by applying external orientation forces (electric or magnetic field) in the monomer state and successive photo-curing. The resulting conformation of a NLC media is determined through the interaction with the formed network. We study on the LC molecular alignment effect by means of the observation of the Nematic-Isotropic phase transition behavior. From the results, we find that the behavior of the phase transition is different comparing with a conventional system without a polymer network. Furthermore, it is clarified that the interaction between a polymer network and LC molecules is strong.