Mission: The project mission is to study phase separation and other processes which produce heterogeneous liquid crystalline materials (which may include dyes) and to understand the relationship between morphology and bulk physical properties and response. The aim is to have greater control of morphology in order to design and fabricate heterogeneous structures with desired optical and physical properties.

Accomplishments:

• Constructed ruggedized TN display with field formed walls
• Live-mode PC based modeling of reaction driven phase separation
• Constructed web server for archiving, publishing, retrieving and disseminating scientific information
• Constructed polymer stabilized black-and-white reflective display
• Demonstrated sub-microsecond polymer stabilized cholesteric grating with >70% efficiency into first diffracted order
• Numerical simulation investigated anisotropic ordering and phase separation
• Measured coarsening and structure factor in aggregating particle networks

Objectives:

• Experimentally and theoretically establish phase diagram of an LC/crosslinked network system
• Atomistic molecular modeling to follow the phase separation process
• Modeling of phase separation in non-uniform fields
• Optimize polymer stabilized cholesteric grating for diffraction efficiency
• Numerical modeling of kinetics of phase separation
• Preparation of PDLC by curing phase separated composites to reduce LC solubility in polymer matrix
• Produce the spectrum of particulate to fibrillar networks using a single monomer

Deliverables:

• Patterned droplet size distribution via patterned fields
• Digital image library for information management component