2019 Volume 32 Issue 4 Pages 639-643
This report describes the preparation of lyotropic cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) with visible reflection by using two kinds of human-friendly materials. We adopted a cellulosic derivative as the main CLC component and α-ionone as the additive liquid. A cellulosic derivative possessing propionyl side chains was dissolved in α-ionone at the concentration between 66 wt% and 86 wt% for the formation of lyotropic CLCs. We confirmed that the visual appearance of lyotropic CLC phase shows iridescent feature such as visible Bragg reflection. The reflection peak wavelengths could be easily tuned not only by controlling the concentration of cellulosic derivative, but also by temperature. Moreover, it turned out that the refection wavelength is influenced by weight average molecular weights of the cellulosic derivatives used in lyotropic CLC mixtures. This report provides promising clues to fabricate environment- and human-friendly photonic devices by using cellulose and ionone.
