Effects of the mixture composition on the microstructure of polymer matrix and light scattering properties of liquid crystal/photo-polymerizable monomers composites

Abstract The microstructure and electro-optical effects based on light scattering have been investigated for nematic liquid crystal (LC)/photo-polymerizable monomers composites. It was demonstrated that the optimum electro-optical properties of the composites were obtained when the LC content was between 60 and 70 wt%. Furthermore, the variety of the light scattering intensity for the composites in the wavelength region of 300–2500 nm was studied experimentally and theoretically with the combination of three kinds of classical light scattering theories: the Rayleigh–Gans (RG) approach, the anomalous diffraction (AD) approach, and the geometrical optics (GO) approach. Then a simple mathematic simulation was established to describe the relationship between the transmittance and the incident wavelength in this wavelength region.