Low-voltage polymer-stabilized liquid crystals enabled by phase separation between liquid crystals and blends of mesogenic and non-mesogenic monomers

We propose polymer-stabilized liquid crystals (PSLCs) operating at ultra-low voltage by leveraging phase separation between the host liquid crystal and a monomer blend consisting of mesogenic and non-mesogenic components during polymerization. Incorporating a branched-structure non-mesogenic monomer into the rod-shaped mesogenic matrix induces an effective phase separation, leading to a notable reduction in operating voltage. The electro-optical characteristics of our PSLC devices were evaluated under varying total monomer concentrations and mesogenic-to-non-mesogenic monomer ratios. As mitigating transmittance degradation caused by phase separation, the optimized PSLC device achieved a threshold voltage of 3 V and a saturation voltage of 7.3 V, along with voltage hysteresis of 0.16 V. These results can be potentially used in energy-efficient smart window applications.