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• Gregorc, M
• Li, H
• Domenici, V
• Ambrožič, G
• Čopič, M
• Drevenšek-Olenik, I
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• Gregorc, M
• Li, H
• Domenici, V
• Ambrožič, G
• Čopič, M
• Drevenšek-Olenik, I
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• Gregorc, M
• Li, H
• Domenici, V
• Ambrožič, G
• Čopič, M
• Drevenšek-Olenik, I

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Materials 2012, 5(5), 741-753; doi:10.3390/ma5050741

Article

Kinetics of Holographic Recording and Spontaneous Erasure Processes in Light-Sensitive Liquid Crystal Elastomers

Marko Gregorc ¹ , Hui Li ² , Valentina Domenici ³ , Gabriela Ambrožič ^4,5 , Martin Čopič ^1,6  and Irena Drevenšek-Olenik ^1,6,*

¹ J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, Ljubljana, SI 1000, Slovenia ² Nankai University, TEDA APS, 23 Hongda Street, Tianjin 300457, China ³ Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università degli studi di Pisa, via Risorgimento, 35, Pisa 56126, Italy ⁴ National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, Ljubljana, SI 1000, Slovenia ⁵ Center of Excellence for Polymer Materials and Technologies, Tehnološki Park 24, Ljubljana, SI 1000, Slovenia ⁶ Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, Ljubljana, SI 1000, Slovenia

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 20 February 2012; in revised form: 16 March 2012 / Accepted: 22 March 2012 / Published: 25 April 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Modern Holographic Applications)

Download PDF Full-Text [650 KB, uploaded 25 April 2012 17:19 CEST]

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: liquid crystal elastomers; light-sensitive materials; holographic lithography; optical microstructuring; recording kinetics

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