Alignment of single-walled carbon nanotubes in polymer dispersed liquid crystals

Abstract

Reverse morphology polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films are liquid crystal dispersions in a polymer network, whose voids and crevices are filled by liquid crystal. If they are prepared with homeotropic alignment, they can give rise to transparent electro-optical devices, which can be turned into an opaque state by application of a suitable electric field. They can be easily prepared by polymerisation of mixtures of liquid crystalline monomers and liquid crystals. In this paper we have doped reverse morphology PDLCs with increasing amounts of single-walled carbon nanotubes and investigated their effects on the morphology, electro-optical properties, and conductivity of the PDLC films. The influence of a different initial alignment of liquid crystal (homeotropic, homogeneous, and random) has also been studied.