Effects of the mixture composition on the microstructure of polymer matrix and light scattering properties of liquid crystal/photo-polymerizable monomers composites

The microstructure and electro-optical effects based on light scattering have been investigated for nematic liquid crystal (LC)/photo-polymerizable monomers composites. It was demonstrated that the optimum electro-optical properties of the composites were obtained when the LC content was between 60 and 70 wt%. Furthermore, the variety of the light scattering intensity for the composites in the wavelength region of 300-2500 nm was studied experimentally and theoretically with the combination of three kinds of classical light scattering theories: the Rayleigh-Cans (RG) approach, the anomalous diffraction (AD) approach, and the geometrical optics (GO) approach. Then a simple mathematic simulation was established to describe the relationship between the transmittance and the incident wavelength in this wavelength region. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.