Deformable Photonic Crystals Based on Chiral Liquid Crystals with Thermal-Mediative Shape Memory Effect
Min-Seok Park,
Kitae Kim,
Young-Joo Lee,
Jun-Hee Na,
Se-Um Kim
Affiliations
Min-Seok Park
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01811, Republic of Korea
Kitae Kim
Department of Convergence System Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Republic of Korea
Young-Joo Lee
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 3231 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
Jun-Hee Na
Department of Convergence System Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Republic of Korea
Se-Um Kim
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, 232 Gongneung-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01811, Republic of Korea
We propose a deformable photonic crystal that exhibits the thermal-mediative shape memory effect. The chiral liquid crystalline polymeric scaffold, which produces the structural colors from a helical twist of the liquid crystal director, is prepared through phase-stabilization of a reactive mesogen in a small molecular chiral liquid crystal (CLC), polymerization, and removal of the CLC. The prepolymer of polyurethane acrylate (PUA) is then infiltrated in the prepared scaffold and subsequently photo-polymerized to form a CLC-PUA composite film. Upon compression, this film shows the blue shift of the structural color and retains this color-shift as released from compression. As the temperature increases, the color is recovered to a pristine state. The concept proposed in this study will be useful for designing mechanochromic soft materials.
