[18p-PA1-1~14] 3.2 Equipment optics and materials

[18p-PA1-14] Mechano-Optical Properties of Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Elastomers with Precisely Designed Helical Molecular Orientations

〇Maki Yanagihara¹, Kyosun Ku¹, Seiya Kimura¹, Shohei Sugiyama¹, Kyohei Hisano¹, Osamu Tsutsumi¹ (1.Col. Life Sci., Ritsumeikan Univ.)

Keywords:Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers, Selective light reflection, Diffractive optical elements

Liquid crystal elastomers show rubbery elasticity due to three-dimensional polymer networks, and the macroscopic shape deformation is strongly coupled with the change of microscopic molecular orientation of liquid crystal molecules. Especially, cholesteric liquid crystals, forming a helically twisted molecular orientation intrinsically, has a periodic distribution of refractive index; thus, they enable to manifest unique optical properties such as reflection and diffraction. Here, we investigated mechano-optical properties of the cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers.