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Control of liquid crystal molecular orientation using ultrasound vibration

2016; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 108; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1063/1.4943494

1520-8842

Satoki Taniguchi, Daisuke Koyama, Yuki Shimizu, Akira Emoto, Kentaro Nakamura, Mami Matsukawa,

Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics

We propose a technique to control the orientation of nematic liquid crystals using ultrasound and investigate the optical characteristics of the oriented samples. An ultrasonic liquid crystal cell with a thickness of 5–25 μm and two ultrasonic lead zirconate titanate transducers was fabricated. By exciting the ultrasonic transducers, the flexural vibration modes were generated on the cell. An acoustic radiation force to the liquid crystal layer was generated, changing the molecular orientation and thus the light transmission. By modulating the ultrasonic driving frequency and voltage, the spatial distribution of the molecular orientation of the liquid crystals could be controlled. The distribution of the transmitted light intensity depends on the thickness of the liquid crystal layer because the acoustic field in the liquid crystal layer is changed by the orientational film.