Photoinduced bending and unbending behavior of liquid-crystalline gels and elastomers
Y. Yu, M. Nakano, and T. Ikeda
Chemical Resources Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of
Technology, R1-11, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8503, Japan;
Department of Materials Science, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road,
Shanghai 200433, China
Abstract: Liquid-crystalline gels and elastomers were prepared
by polymerization of mixtures containing azobenzene monomers and cross
linkers with azobenzene moieties. Oriented liquid-crystalline gels and
elastomer films were found to undergo anisotropic bending and unbending
behavior only along the rubbing direction, when exposed to alternate
irradiation of unpolarized UV and visible light. In the case of polydomain
liquid-crystalline elastomer films, the bending and unbending were induced
exactly along the polarization direction of incident linearly polarized
light. By altering the polarization direction of light, a single film
could be bent repeatedly and precisely along any chosen direction.
*Lecture presented at the symposium "Polymers in electronics and photonics: Synthesis, characterizations and device applications", as part of the 39th IUPAC Congress and 86th Conference of the Canadian Society for Chemistry: Chemistry at the Interfaces, Ottawa, Canada, 10-15 August 2003. Other Congress presentations are published in this issue, pp. 1295-1603.
Page last modified 15 September 2004.
Copyright © 2004 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Questions or comments about IUPAC, please contact, the Secretariat.
Questions regarding the website, please contact web
manager.
