Cicuta P, Tajbakhsh A R, Terentjev E M
Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2004 Jul;70(1 Pt 1):011703. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.70.011703. Epub 2004 Jul 15.
Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers have interesting and potentially very useful photonic properties. In an ideal monodomain configuration of these materials, one finds a Bragg reflection of light in a narrow wavelength range and a particular circular polarization. This is due to the periodic structure of the material along one dimension. In many practical cases, the cholesteric rubber possesses a sufficient degree of quenched disorder, which makes the selective reflection broadband. We investigate experimentally the problem of how the transmittance of light is affected by mechanical deformation of the elastomer, and the relation to changes in liquid crystalline structure. We explore a series of samples which have been synthesized with photonic stop gaps across the visible range. This allows us to compare results with detailed theoretical predictions regarding the evolution of stop gaps in cholesteric elastomers.
胆甾相液晶弹性体具有有趣且可能非常有用的光子特性。在这些材料的理想单畴构型中，人们会在窄波长范围内发现光的布拉格反射以及特定的圆偏振。这是由于材料沿一维的周期性结构所致。在许多实际情况中，胆甾相橡胶具有足够程度的猝灭无序，这使得选择性反射带宽化。我们通过实验研究了弹性体的机械变形如何影响光的透射率，以及与液晶结构变化的关系。我们探索了一系列在可见光范围内合成有光子带隙的样品。这使我们能够将结果与关于胆甾相弹性体中带隙演变的详细理论预测进行比较。
