Electromechanical and Electrooptical Effects of Liquid Crystal Elastomers Swollen with a Low Molecular Weight Liquid Crystal

Abstract

We experimentally investigated the electromechanical and electrooptical effects in polydomain liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) swollen with a well known LMWLC, 4-n-pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (5CB). The displacement and optical intensity changes were measured as a function of the voltage. We found that the threshold value for the onset of electromechanical and electrooptical effects is small, V ∼ 1.0 V.

Keywords:

• electromechanical effects
• electrooptical effects
• liquid crystal elastomers

Acknowledgments

We thank Nicole Assfalg for sending us some of the samples used in these measurements. This work is partially supported by the Japan-Germany Scientific Cooperative Program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Grant for Scientific Research sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research on priority areas, No. 438 “Next-Generation Actuators Leading Breakthroughs”. H.R.B. thanks the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for partial support of his work through Sonderforschungsbereich 481 [Kgrave]omplexe Polymer- und Hybridmaterialien in inneren und äuβeren Feldern. Y.Y. thanks the Research Fellowships of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS).