Ferroelectric liquid crystal composites based on the porous stretched polyethylene films

Abstract

Electro-optically active polymer–liquid crystal composites based on ferroelectric liquid crystals and stretched porous polyethylene films were developed. The alignment of ferroelectric liquid crystals incorporated into the porous polyethylene films with average porous diameter of around 200 nm was observed and studied. It was shown experimentally that these samples containing ferroelectric liquid crystals are flexible electro-optical films exhibiting a saturation electric field near 2·10⁷ Vm⁻¹ and a response time of about 30 μs under the action of the saturation field. A simple theoretical model of ferroelectric liquid crystal molecules' complete reorientation in electric fields inside pores of the films has been proposed and confirmed experimentally.

Keywords:

• nano-porous polyethylene
• ferroelectric liquid crystals
• birefringence
• electro-optics

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Russian Foundation of Fundamental Research (Projects 09-03-12234-OFI-M, 08-03-00481-a, 08-07-13554-OFI-TS), and Program COST-D35.