Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.646, No.1, 220-225, 2017
Nematic copolymer network LCs for swift continuous phase modulation and opaque scattering states
The electro-optic response properties of a copolymer network liquid crystal in test cells with cell gaps of 2.5 mu m and 5 mu m were compared. In both test cells, responses with sums (t(on) + t(off)) < 3.5ms were found. The responses were approximate to 1ms faster in the thinner test cells. Moreover, the experiments with the thinner test cells showed that the response time t(off) increased with increasing voltage. The scattering properties of samples with lower polymer content were investigated and it was found that samples with 4% overall copolymer content could scatter more than 40% of the incident light already in a 8 mu m thick LC layer at driving voltages of 8-12V, whereas the no voltage state had a high see-through transparency.