Homeotropically oriented nematic physical gels for electrooptical materials

Abstract

Homeotropically oriented liquid-crystalline (LC) physical gels have been prepared from a room temperature nematic liquid crystal with negative dielectric anisotropy and a low molecular weight gelator containing an L-lysine moiety. The oriented self-aggregated fibres of the gelator are formed by the template effect of the homeotropically aligned nematic LC media. These LC gels exhibit significant electrooptical switching in liquid crystal cells and show high transparency in electric field off-states. The application of electric fields induces light scattering turbid states due to the formation of LC polydomain structures. The electrooptical switching behaviour is highly dependent on the concentration of the gelator.