Issue 35, 2013

Photo-sensitivity of dye-doped liquid crystal elastomers

Abstract

Monodomain nematic Liquid Crystal Elastomers (LCEs) are unusual materials, that can undergo uniaxial contraction in response to liquid crystal phase changes. The most straightforward way to bring about such a change is by direct heating, but heat is not an ideal stimulus if the material is to be used in most applications; it is therefore advantageous to sensitize the material to an alternative stimulus, such as light. LCEs containing different dye concentrations have been synthesized, and it is shown that the presence of the dye does sensitize the material to light; crucially, the dye does not have to contain the photo-isomerizable azobenzene functional group (used in many other studies on photosensitive LCEs) in order for this to be the case. This finding is of value since it indicates that any strongly light-absorbing dye, when subjected to light irradiation, is capable of thermally triggering a phase change.

Graphical abstract: Photo-sensitivity of dye-doped liquid crystal elastomers

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Apr 2013
Accepted
19 Jul 2013
First published
29 Jul 2013

Soft Matter, 2013,9, 8547-8551

Photo-sensitivity of dye-doped liquid crystal elastomers

J. E. Marshall and E. M. Terentjev, Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 8547 DOI: 10.1039/C3SM51091C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements