Gregor Skačej (Author), Lara Querciagrossa (Author), Claudio Zannoni (Author)

Abstract

We investigate main-chain liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) formed by photoresponsive azobenzene units with different populations of trans and cis conformers (from fully trans to fully cis). We study their macroscopic properties as well as their molecular organization using extensive Monte Carlo simulations of a simple coarse-grained model where the trans and cis conformers are represented by soft-core biaxial Gay−Berne particles with size and interaction energy parameters obtained by fitting a bare bone azobenzene moiety represented at atomistic level. We find that increasing the fraction of cis conformers, as could be obtained by near-UV irradiation, shifts the nematic−isotropic transition to a lower temperature, consistently with experiment, while generating internal stress in a clamped sample. An analysis of pair distributions shows that the immediate surroundings of a bent cis molecule are slightly less dense and more orientationally disordered in comparison with that of a trans conformer. Comparing nematic and smectic LCEs, actuation in the smectic phase proved less effective, disrupting the smectic layers to some extent but preserving orientational order of the azobenzene moieties.

Keywords

tekočekristalni elastomeri;azobenzen;fizikalna kemija;liquid crystal elastomers;azobenzene;physical chemistry;

Data

Language: English
Year of publishing:
Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization: UL FMF - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
UDC: 544.25
COBISS: 160768771 Link will open in a new window
ISSN: 2637-6105
Views: 15
Downloads: 4
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Other data

Secondary language: Slovenian
Secondary keywords: tekočekristalni elastomeri;azobenzen;fizikalna kemija;
Type (COBISS): Article
Pages: str. 5805−5815
Volume: ǂVol. ǂ5
Issue: ǂiss. ǂ8
Chronology: 2023
DOI: 10.1021/acsapm.3c00361
ID: 21439510