Control of Polymer Orientation in Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal (PDLC)

It is considered that electrooptical properties of polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) strongly depend on the polymer network structure. Therefore, we have tried to control the orientation of the polymer network of PDLC, and we succeeded by means of photopolymerization of the nematic phase mixture of the monomer and liquid crystal material. In addition, the liquid crystal in the PDLC was roughly aligned parallel to the extended direction of the polymer network. This result predicts that uniform alignment of liquid crystal can be obtained by optimizing the polymerization condition.