Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.547, 116-127, 2011
Effect of the Polymer Network Morphology Created Under Electric Field in the Short Pitch FLC on the Dielectric Responses
Polymer-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystals (PSFLCs) are made by photo polymerizing of 7% reactive mesogenic monomer in a highly twisted ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC). This study reveals that both the dielectric intensity and the relaxation frequencies of the collective relaxations mechanisms namely soft and the Goldstone modes are strongly affected not only by the presence of the polymer network but also by the polymerization conditions. It is shown that, for sample polymerized with the presence of electric field, the dielectric strengths decrease and the relaxation frequencies are shifted to high frequencies compared to the sample polymerized without the presence of the electric field. This behavior was found strongly dependent of the structure of the polymer fibers. A simple phenomenological model is proposed to explain the behavior of the soft mode dielectric intensity.