Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Vol.86, No.1, 250-258, 2002
The external electric field effects on the morphology of phase separation in a mixture of liquid crystal/flexible polymer
In this article, the morphologies of phase separation in the mixtures of small molecular liquid crystal and flexible polymers with or without being subjected to the external electric field are preliminarily studied by polarized light microscope. It is found that the characteristic "Swiss cheese" morphology can always be observed for the case of zero field strength. For the case of 1.2 V/mum field strength, it is found that the external electric field make the binodal curves of the phase diagrams shift to higher temperature and the "Swiss cheese" morphology can never Lie observed. However, the domain growth rate is highly accelerated due to the fact that the electric field oriented liquid crystal phase excludes the polymer coils strongly.