In this work, we report the first example of a calamitic mesogenic near-infrared (NIR) absorbing organic dye, made by functionalizing a thiophene-croconaine chromophore rigid core with two symmetric long flexible alkyl chains. The liquid crystal (LC) NIR dye YHD796 exhibits a sharp and intense NIR absorption band with a maximum absorption peak at 796 nm. Taking advantage of the improved solubility of YHD796 dispersed in mesogenic molecules, a homogeneously-aligned mono-domain liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE)/YHD796 composite film is successfully prepared by applying the classical LC-cell-alignment method and in situ photo-polymerization of photocurable LC monomer mixtures. This LCE/YHD796 composite film performs a fully reversible contraction/expansion response towards NIR light stimulus due to the photo-thermal heating effect induced by the YHD796 dye well-dispersed in the LCE matrix.
CITATION STYLE
Guo, L. X., Liu, M. H., Sayed, S. M., Lin, B. P., Keller, P., Zhang, X. Q., … Yang, H. (2016). A calamitic mesogenic near-infrared absorbing croconaine dye/liquid crystalline elastomer composite. Chemical Science, 7(7), 4400–4406. https://doi.org/10.1039/c6sc00758a
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