Kinetics of holographic recording and spontaneous erasure processes in light-sensitive liquid crystal elastomers

Gregorc, Marko (author), Li, Hui (author), Domenici, Valentina (author), Ambrožič, Gabriela (author), Čopič, Martin (author), Drevenšek Olenik, Irena (author)

The optical mechanism for imprinting one-dimensional grating structures into thin films of a light-sensitive monodomain liquid crystal elastomer is investigated by analyzing the time dependence of optical diffraction properties. The recording kinetics shows an irregular oscillatory behavior, which is most expressed at small grating spacings and at temperatures close to the nematic-isotropic phase transition. The oscillations are attributed to the opto-mechanical response of the film, i.e., to contraction of the film during the recording process. At temperatures far below the nematic-isotropic phase transition, the spontaneous erasure kinetics exhibits exponential relaxation with relaxation time following the Arrhenius activation law. However, at temperatures close to the nematic-isotropic phase transition, the erasure process shows an interesting nonmonotonic behavior that we attribute to the non-linear relation between the concentration of the photo-transformed chemical groups and the nematic order parameter.

• Language: English
• Keywords: liquid crystal elastomers, light-sensitive materials, holographic lithography, optical microstructuring, recording kinetics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FMF - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2012
• Number of pages: Str. 741-753
• Numbering: Vol. 5, iss. 5
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-129632
• UDC: 53
• ISSN on article: 1996-1944
• DOI: 10.3390/ma5050741
• COBISS.SI-ID: 25765927
• Publication date in RUL: 06.09.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Materials
• Shortened title: Materials
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1996-1944
• COBISS.SI-ID: 33588485

Licences

• License: CC BY 3.0, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
• Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
• Description: You are free to reproduce and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You are free to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
• Licensing start date: 01.05.2012

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P1-0192
• Name: Svetloba in snov

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia
• Project number: 32111-00-00057