Direct Ink Writing of Anisotropic Luminescent Materials
Mattia Sabadin,
Jeroen A. H. P. Sol,
Michael G. Debije
Affiliations
Mattia Sabadin
Materials and Process Engineering, Department of Engineering and Architecture, Università degli studi di Trieste (UniTS), 34127 Trieste, Italy
Jeroen A. H. P. Sol
Laboratory of Stimuli-Responsive Functional Materials and Devices (SFD), Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Michael G. Debije
Laboratory of Stimuli-Responsive Functional Materials and Devices (SFD), Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Luminescent solar concentrators are relatively inexpensive devices proposed to collect, convert, and redirect incident (sun)light for a variety of potential applications. In this work, dichroic dyes are embedded in a liquid crystal elastomer matrix and used as feedstock for direct ink writing. Direct ink writing is a promising and versatile application technique for arbitrarily aligning the dichroic dyes over glass and poly(methyl methacrylate) lightguide surfaces. The resulting prints display anisotropic edge emissions, and suggest usage as striking visual objects, combining localized color and intensity variations when viewed through a polarizer.
