The authors report on the multistage optical memory of a liquid crystal (LC) diffraction grating fabricated using a dye-dispersed LC/polymer composite medium. Under a single pump beam, the reorientation of dye molecules, confined within spatially periodic interpolymer networks produced by a patterned exposure of ultraviolet light, allows for a pure optic-axis modulation which gives high diffraction efficiency in a planar LC configuration. The resultant multistage optical memory of the LC grating is controlled solely by the polarization state of a single rewriting beam without the use of an erasing step prior to every rewriting process.
We report on a site-selective assembly and fixation process for setting colloidal particles onto a two-dimensional array on a wettability-patterned surface. The site-selectivity originates from the control of the wettability of a liquid crystal (LC)/prepolymer composite, used as a colloidal suspension, on an alignment layer exposed to ultraviolet light. The fixation of close-packed colloidal particles was achieved on a supported polymer film formed through the anisotropic phase separation of the LC/prepolymer. This wettability-based assembly and fixing process for colloidal particles could be useful for biomedical and photonic applications.
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