Effect of polymerization temperature on the morphology and electrooptic properties of polymer-stabilized liquid crystals

The effect of structure of mesogenic diacrylate monomer and temperature of photopolymerization on the morphology of polymer networks has been studied in detail. Increasing the temperature of photopolymerization increases the size of the constituent units and correspondingly the size of the pores of the polymer network. A model explaining the dependence of the characteristic dimension of the polymer network on the concentration and the relative rates of diffusion and reaction has been developed. A new type of morphology consisting of a network of plates was made from a smectogenic monomer (4,4'-bis{4-[6-(acryloyloxy)hexyloxy]benzoate}biphenylene) and demonstrated to have unusual electrooptic properties. Electrooptic studies were performed on all the morphologies obtained. Morphologies having highly oriented structure result in higher threshold voltage and switching hysteresis.