RAFT Copolymerization as a means to enhance the electro‐optical performance of polymer dispersed liquid crystal films

Effect of the structure of gelators on electro-optical properties of liquid crystal physical gels

“…Molecular calculations of the lowest energy conformations and molecular dimensions were performed with the semiempirical Parametric Method 3 (PM3) of the HYPERCHEM package [4,5]. The electro-optical properties of samples were measured with the UV 1810 PC spectrometer as reported [15]. The wavelength of incident light was 550 nm and these measurements were corrected by atmosphere directly.…”

Influence of macroinitiator’s glass transition temperature on the response times of polymer dispersed liquid crystals

“…It was reported that the decreasing T g of the polymer matrix did cause a decrease in the surface anchoring strength at a polymer/LC interface [18]. Different anchoring strength gave rise to different response times, and the explanation was presented below.…”

“…We have reported that macroinitiators with different T g chains were prepared by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation and used to prepare PDLC films with different T g block chains [15,18]. The reason to use RAFT polymerisation was that this kind of polymerisation was one of the most efficient methods to control molecular weight and structure of polymer.…”

Effect of macro-RAFT agent on the morphology of polymer dispersed liquid crystals

“…Our previous papers focused on investigating the influence of the structure of macro-RAFT agents on EO properties, and obtained the PDLCs with low switching voltage and weak memory effect. [16][17][18][19] However, polymerisation kinetics and phase separation process during RAFT polymerisation are not yet very clear. Therefore, in order to provide the theoretical basis for getting the most effective approach improving EO properties, it is necessary to elucidate polymerisation kinetics and phase separation process.…”