Both nematic elastomers and nematic hydrogels are known to display striped patterns.In contrast to a large body of proposed models for nematic elastomers,few studies exist to interpret striping in nematic hydrogels.In...Both nematic elastomers and nematic hydrogels are known to display striped patterns.In contrast to a large body of proposed models for nematic elastomers,few studies exist to interpret striping in nematic hydrogels.In this paper,a theoretical model based on free energyminimization is developed to simulate the drying-induced striping in a layer of nematic hydrogel bonded to a rigid substrate.The liquid crystalline polymers in the nematic hydrogel rotate by certain angles to form the striping in response to a drying environment.Moreover,the striping occurs only for a finite range of humidity,and the boundaries of this range can be tuned.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10872150,11090334)Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (B302)
文摘Both nematic elastomers and nematic hydrogels are known to display striped patterns.In contrast to a large body of proposed models for nematic elastomers,few studies exist to interpret striping in nematic hydrogels.In this paper,a theoretical model based on free energyminimization is developed to simulate the drying-induced striping in a layer of nematic hydrogel bonded to a rigid substrate.The liquid crystalline polymers in the nematic hydrogel rotate by certain angles to form the striping in response to a drying environment.Moreover,the striping occurs only for a finite range of humidity,and the boundaries of this range can be tuned.
