A cinnamate liquid crystal for rapid optical recording

ABSTRACT

Photorecording materials have been applied for information recording. Herein, a cinnamate liquid crystal with an enantiotropic nematic phase was synthesised, which can be isomerised and polymerised under the irradiation of the 365-nm UV light. Cholesteric liquid crystal polymer network (CLCN) films were prepared using the mixtures of it, LC242, a chiral dopant and a photoinitiator. The CLCN films possess a slight gradient helical pitch which increases from the bottom to the top of the films. The formation of this structure should be driven by the photoisomerisation of the cinnamate. Under the irradiation of 365-nm UV light with a low intensity, the CLC mixtures show a photochromic behaviour which is proposed to be driven by the formation of oligomers. Based on this, the CLC mixtures can be applied for optical recording.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Cinnamate liquid crystal
• cholesteric liquid crystal networks
• structural colour
• broadband
• optical recording

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02678292.2024.2302458.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 52273212], the Project of Scientific and Technologic Infrastructure of Suzhou [No. SZS201905], the Key Laboratory of Polymeric Materials Design and Synthesis for Biomedical Function and the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application.