Effects of quenching temperature on threshold, driving voltage and morphology of reverse mode liquid crystal gel films

Abstract

This study demonstrated that the electro-optical properties and morphology of reverse mode liquid crystal (LC) gel films are strongly influenced by the quenching temperature (TQ) during the manufacturing processes. Composite films were self-assembled using LC and gelator molecules by using different TQ values (70, 80, 90, 100, 110 and 120 °C) and a cold brine (−15 °C). As TQ increased, the morphology of the gel in the polarised light microscope images are changed from neatly arranged fibre-like patterns to random disordered networks. Furthermore, the threshold and driving voltages of the films decreased. For further investigating the gelation processes, Steady cooling rates of 3, 10 and 30 °C min−1 were adopted during the manufacturing process of the LC films. The corresponding morphologies of the films were carefully inspected and compared with those of the quenched films.