Perfluoroalkyl acrylate functionalized soft cubic optical microstructure with enhanced electric-field responsiveness

Abstract

An advisable perfluoroalkyl acrylates functionalized system is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to drastically enhance the electric-field responsiveness of blue phase liquid crystal (BPLC), which overcomes the common tradeoff between the driving voltage and response time dependent on the polymer concentration. On one hand, a quick electrical response can be readily obtained from a denser polymer network due to the participation of perfluoroalkyl acrylates in photo-crosslinking; on the other hand, the large rising trend of driving voltage with the growing polymer concentration can be alleviated due to the reduced anchoring energy between the BPLC and surrounding polymer attributed to the lower surface tension of perfluoroalkyl acrylate. In consequence, a faster decay time of 0.54 ms and almost hysteresis-free electro-optical (E-O) performance of the BPLC is achieved, with an efficient reduction by almost half in the driving voltage.