Study Of The Texture Of Dispersed Liquid Crystal Droplet And The Information Exchange Between Droplets

Own to its outstanding property, liquid crystal was applied in many areas，such ascommunication，information display，optical sensor and digital private windows. And itsapplication field was broaden further as time went. In recent years, polymer dispersed liquidcrystal droplet became one focusing area and received a lot of research. But most previousresearches used silicone oil or glycerol as the continuous phase to disperse liquid crystal. Inour study, we applied the aqueous solution which contained ionized micelles as thecontinuous phase, and the systematic study was made for liquid crystal droplet in differentphase. Compare it with previous researches, liquid crystal droplets had some uniqueproperties under this condition and it was proved to be valuable both in scientific research andin future practical purpose. The main works in this paper were showed below:1、Observed the droplets texture of cholesteric liquid crystal and nematic liquid crystal,which were dispersed in ionized micelles in aqueous solution, and the molecular arrangementinside of the droplet. There existed small difference in the droplet texture when using differentnematic materials with different material parameter. The compare of the cholesteric liquidcrystal droplet texture in different doping concentration was made. The process of the texturechange when the free energy of cholesteric droplet, with high doped concentration, wasdecreasing. This unstable process was caused by the balancing of surface anchoring force andbulk elastic force. We also detected the texture of cholesteric droplet in low chirality state,which helical pith was similar with the droplet radius.2、The solublization phenomenon of liquid crystal molecules in ionized surfactantmicelles aqueous solution was studied. Son water droplets inside of cholesteric droplet andthe son liquid crystal droplets in the surrounding solution appeared. Consider with the sizedifference of father liquid crystal droplet, we could conclude that there exist the molecularexchange through the interface between liquid crystal and the surfactant solution. And themolecular exchange phenomenon got the dynamic balance that more liquid crystal moleculestransfer into the solution. The possible molecular transfer pathway was offered. 3、The convection flow phenomenon happened inside and outside the liquid crystaldroplet, and this flow phenomenon cause the self-driven movement of droplet. Due to thematerial exchange through the droplet surface, the surface anchoring of droplet changed.Along with the redistribution of materials, the flow happened. With the help of unique textureof cholesteric droplet, the flow inside of droplet was clearly recorded. And using the bigamount of tiny droplets in surfactant solutions as the reference, the flow in surroundingsolution was perceived. The strange texture of nematic droplet that its defect point movedtoward droplet surface rather than in droplet center, was proved to be related with the flowinside droplet. Flow also given raise to the self-motion movement of droplets. The self-drivenmotion of nematic liquid crystal droplet was linear motion. In the case of cholesteric liquidcrystal droplet, one more rotation movement was detected.4、In particular condition, the helical information shared between cholesteric andnematic liquid crystal droplets, and this also lead to the droplet texture change. Thisinformation exchange phenomenon was caused by the molecular transfer from cholesteric tonematic liquid crystal droplet. The detail about the qualification of the tranfer remained to bediscovered in further work.