Photoalignment at the nematic liquid crystal - polymer interface: experimental evidence of three-dimensional reorientation

Publication date: Available online 18 April 2019Source: Journal of Molecular LiquidsAuthor(s): Tibor Tóth-Katona, István JánossyAbstractWe provide experimental evidence that photoalignment at the nematic liquid crystal (NLC) - polymer interface can not be simply considered as a two-dimensional process. Moreover, our experiments clearly indicate that the photoaligning process does not depend on the individual properties of the NLC material and those of the interfacing polymer exclusively. The polymer and the NLC layer interact, i.e., the polymer-liquid crystal interface should be regarded as a coupled system, where the two components mutually influence each other. Furthermore, we show that the temperature induced anchoring transition also has to be taken into account for the complete description of the photoalignment mechanism.Graphical Abstract
Source: Journal of Molecular Liquids - Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research