The need for mechanical manipulation during the curing of conventional liquid crystal elastomers diminishes their applicability in the field of shape-programmable soft materials and future applications in additive manufacturing. Here we report on polymer-dispersed liquid crystal elastomers, novel composite materials that eliminate this difficulty. Their thermal shape memory anisotropy is imprin...

Using confocal microscopy, we have studied the morphology of polymer dispersed liquid crystals ~PDLC! as a function of polymer/liquid crystal composition, polymer cure temperature, and ultraviolet ~UV! curing power and determined how this morphology affects the electro-optical properties. The PDLC morphology consists of a spongelike texture where spherically shaped liquid crystalline domains ar...

We report optical switching studies on nematic liquid crystal incorporated into structures based on self-assembled colloids. We compare the electro-optic responses of liquid crystal imbibed into colloid-templated polymers, liquid crystal imbibed in the interstitial space of colloid crystals, and conventional polymer-dispersed liquid crystals. We characterize the Bragg diffraction of our templat...

Polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) represent an important new class of materials for optical device applications. Their valuable advantages such as low operating voltage, high contrast ratio, requiring no extra optical elements (i.e. polarizer), quick electrooptical response, no leakage of materials, simple fabrication, low-cost production and ease of processing make them more popular ov...

PDLCs consist of liquid crystal droplets that are dispersed in a solid polymer matrix. The resulting material is a sort of "swiss cheese" polymer with liquid crystal droplets filling in the holes. These tiny droplets (a few microns across for practical applications) are responsible for the unique behavior of the material. By changing the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules with an elect...

We have constructed polymer-stabilized nematic liquid crystals by photopolymerizing diacrylate monomers in the nematic phase. The orientation of the liquid crystal was controlled by the polymer network. We studied the Freedericksz transition in these systems. Experimentally we studied the transition by measuring the capacitance of the liquid crystal cells as a function of applied voltage. The t...