Broad-wave reflection of polymer-stabilised cholesterol liquid crystal with nanofibers doped magnetic nanoparticles

ABSTRACT

In this study, the polymer-stabilised cholesterol-based liquid crystal (PSCLC) films with broad-wave reflection were prepared via PVA nanofibers as carriers loaded with Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles. Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles have absorption properties in the UV region. When UV light is irradiated along the thickness of the liquid crystal cell, the resulting gradient distribution of UV light intensity induces a gradient distribution of spacing and thus a broad-wave reflection. Specifically, the effects of nanoparticles content loaded in nanofibers, magnetic field strength, polymerisation time and temperature, UV light intensity and polymerised monomer content were studied. The result shows that the proper contents of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles and the polymerisation conditions have favourable impacts on the broad-wave reflection of PSCLC films. To clarify the mechanism of formed broad-wave reflection, the morphology of nanofibers was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The modification of nanoparticles was collected by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and infrared spectroscopy. The texture of PSCLC films was observed by POM. The broad-wave reflection were measured by UV-Vis spectrophotometer. This strategy broadens the broad-wave reflection of PSCLC films from 300 nm to 476 nm increasing its application potential in UV shielding devices, and infrared thermal control devices.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Cholesteric liquid crystal
• PSCLC film
• Fe₃O₄ NPs
• broad-wave reflection
• non-uniform pitch distribution
• magnetic field strength

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yinfu Lu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. Yuzhen Zhao: Data curation, Formal analysis. Xinyue Long: Visualization, Formal analysis. Hong Gao: Visualization, Project administration. Zhuohong Du: Visualization, Investigation, Huimin Zhang: Investigation, Formal analysis. Dong Wang: Conceptualization, Resources, Investigation, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization. Chunsheng Li: Supervision, Formal analysis.

Data availability statement

The authors are unable or have chosen not to specify which data has been used.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Provincial Department of Education [Program No. 22JP100], Science and technology plan project of Xi’an [No. 22GXFW0150], the Youth Innovation Team of Shaanxi, the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 51971182], the Science and Technology Projects of Suzhou City [SYC2022043 and SYG202025], and the Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province (2022).