Effects of silver nanoparticle doping on the electro-optical properties of polymer stabilized liquid crystal devices

ABSTRACT

Polymer stabilised liquid crystal (PSLC) devices are widely used in various smart light modulation occasions. Their electro-optical properties can still be improved to address future challenges. It is well known that doping liquid crystal (LC) materials with nanoparticles can change the material’s electro-optical performance. In this study, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with size about 15–20 nm and surfactant were doped into PSLC devices. The effects of AgNPs doping on the PSLC electro-optical performances were studied. The result shows that AgNPs and surfactant doping can increase the dielectric anisotropy of LC mixture. PSLC devices with AgNPs doping have lower driving voltage and response time than un-doped PSLC devices. Therefore, doping of a specific concentration of AgNPs resulted in PSLC devices with improved electro-optical performance.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Polymer stabilised liquid crystal
• silver nanoparticles
• electro-optical properties
• smart windows

Acknowledgments

This work was also supported by the National Center for International Research on Green Optoelectronics, MOE International Laboratory for Optical Information Technologies, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Information Materials and Technology, the 111 Project and Yunnan expert workstation (No. 2017IC011).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21711530647 and 51561135014), Science and technology project of Guangdong Province (Nos. 2018A050501012 and 2017B020240002), and Guangdong Innovative Research Team Program (No. 2013C102).