抄録
We investigated the effects of the introduction of helical structures into a host liquid crystal on the viscoelastic properties of particle/liquid-crystal composite gels. A composite gel using a cholesteric liquid crystal as a host matrix was found to become soft compared to that using a nematic liquid crystal. With reducing the half-pitch length of a helical structure of cholesteric liquid crystals, a storage modulus of the composite gels showed a linear decrease. On the other hand, a crossover point which is a mechanical quasi-solid–quasi-liquid transition point exhibited no significant changes when the half-pitch length was larger than the radius of a particle used in this study. However, a decrease of the crossover points was observed when the half-pitch length was shorter than the particle radius. We qualitatively discussed the origin of helical-structure-induced softening of particle/liquid-crystal composite gels based on the differences in self-organization behavior of particles in nematic and cholesteric liquid crystals.
