Network morphology and electro-optical characterisations of epoxy-based polymer stabilised liquid crystals

In this paper, by utilising the photoinitiated cationic polymerisation of liquid crystalline epoxide in LC solvents, the epoxy-based polymer stabilised liquid crystals (EPSLCs) were fabricated. The effects of the liquid crystalline epoxide content, UV intensity, polymerisation temperature, and initiator content on the network morphology of liquid crystalline epoxy polymers (LCEPs) and electro-optical characterisations of EPSLC samples were studied. The results suggested that the preparation conditions had a dominant effect on the morphology of the LCEP and the void size in the EPSLC sample. The increase of liquid crystalline epoxide content, UV intensity, and initiator content induced that the density of LCEP network became larger and the void size decreased, which resulted in that the stabilising effect from the LCEP network on the mesogenic solvent molecules was strengthened. Conversely, the increase of polymerisation temperature induced that the stabilising effect from the LCEP network on the LC molecules was weakened.