Issue 24, 2017

Thermal bending coupled with volume change in liquid crystal gels

Abstract

We investigate the thermal bending behavior of liquid crystal gels with hybrid alignment (H-LCGs) accompanied by volume change in isotropic and nematic solvents. The curvature (r−1) of H-LCGs in each solvent markedly depends on the temperature (T) in the nematic state including the reversal of the bending direction, as in the case of the corresponding elastomers in the dry state (H-LCE). The thermal bending of three systems—H-LCGs in isotropic and nematic solvents and H-LCE—differs significantly in several aspects including the T range where r−1 depends on T and the total variation of r−1. The differences in these features among the three systems result from the differences in the magnitude as well as the T-dependence of the nematic order (S), which is correlated with the T-induced volume change. We demonstrate that the T-dependence of the reduced curvature in each system is satisfactorily described by a combination of linear bending theory and the anisotropic Gaussian network model using the corresponding S–T data.

Graphical abstract: Thermal bending coupled with volume change in liquid crystal gels

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
25 Mas 2017
Accepted
13 Eph 2017
First published
25 Eph 2017

Soft Matter, 2017,13, 4341-4348

Thermal bending coupled with volume change in liquid crystal gels

H. Doi and K. Urayama, Soft Matter, 2017, 13, 4341 DOI: 10.1039/C7SM00602K

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