[15a-PB2-1~19] 12.1 Fabrications and Structure Controls

△ [15a-PB2-19] Reducing response time of nanofiber / liquid crystal composite device by controlling fiber density

〇(D)Toan Don¹, Ryotaro Ozaki², Yo Inoue¹, Hiroshi Moritake¹ (1.Nat'l Defense Acad., 2.Ehime Univ.)

Keywords:nanofiber,electrospinning,liquid crystal

Up to now, numerous methods of orienting liquid crystal (LC) molecules have been reported such as rubbed polyimide thin films and ultraviolet light irradiated polyimide films. Furthermore, many interactions between LC and polymers have been researched such as polymer-dispersed and polymer-stabilized LCs. On the other hand, electrospinning is a process of using an electric field to produce solid continuous fiber and, the diameter of fiber is strongly influence by molecular weight and concentration of the spinning solution. With physical properties of a very small diameter and large surface area per unit mass, we expect that oriented nanofibers obtained from electrospinning are able to orientate LC. In this paper, we introduce novel nanofibers / LC composite cell in which aligned nanofibers are installed between the LC layer. The electro-optical characteristics of the novel composite cell are investigated and compare with those of a conventional rubbed polyimide cell. We also investigated the relation between fiber density and response time of the composite cell.