TY - JOUR A1 - Ryabchun, Alexander A1 - Sakhno, Oksana A1 - Stumpe, Joachim A1 - Bobrovsky, Alexey T1 - Full-Polymer Cholesteric Composites for Transmission and Reflection Holographic Gratings JF - Advanced optical materials N2 - A new type of self-organized materials based on cholesteric networks filled with photoactive side-chain copolymer is being developed. Supramolecular helical structure of cholesteric polymer network resulting in the selective reflection is used as a photonic scaffold. Photochromic azobenzene-containing nematic copolymer is embedded in cholesteric scaffold and utilized as a photoactive media for optical pattering. 1D and 2D transmission diffraction gratings are successfully recorded in composite films by holographic technique. For the first time the possibility to create selective reflection gratings in cholesteric material mimicking the natural optical properties of cholesteric mesophase is demonstrated. That enables the coexistence of two selective gratings, where one has an intrinsic cholesteric periodic helical structure and the other is a holographic grating generated in photochromic polymer. The full-polymer composites provide high light-induced optical anisotropy due to effective photo-orientation of side-chain fragments of the azobenzene-containing liquid crystalline polymer, and prevent the degradation of the helical superstructure maintaining all optical properties of cholesteric mesophase. The proposed class of optical materials could be easily applied to a broad range of polymeric materials with specific functionality. The versatility of the adjustment and material preprogramming combined with high optical performance makes these materials a highly promising candidate for modern optical and photonic applications. KW - azobenzene KW - cholesteric scaffolds KW - holography KW - LC polymer KW - polarization diffraction grating KW - reflection grating Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/adom.201700314 SN - 2195-1071 VL - 5 SP - 376 EP - 379 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ryabchun, Alexander A1 - Raguzin, Ivan A1 - Stumpe, Joachim A1 - Shibaev, Valery A1 - Bobrovsky, Alexey T1 - Cholesteric Polymer Scaffolds Filled with Azobenzene-Containing Nematic Mixture with Phototunable Optical Properties JF - Scientific reports N2 - The past two decades witnessed tremendous progress in the field of creation of different types of responsive materials. Cholesteric polymer networks present a very promising class of smart materials due to the combination of the unique optical properties of cholesteric mesophase and high mechanical properties of polymer networks. In the present work we demonstrate the possibility of fast and reversible photocontrol of the optical properties of cholesteric polymer networks. Several cholesteric photopolymerizable mixtures are prepared, and porous cholesteric network films with different helix pitches are produced by polymerization of these mixtures. An effective and simple method of the introduction of photochromic azobenzene-containing nematic mixture capable of isothermal photoinducing the nematic isotropic phase transition into the porous polymer matrix is developed, It is found that cross-linking density and degree of polymer network filling with a photochromic nematic mixture strongly influence the photo-optical behavior of the obtained composite films. In particular, the densely cross-linked films are characterized by a decrease in selective light reflection bandwidth, whereas weakly cross-linked systems display two processes: the shift of selective light reflection peak and decrease of its width. It is noteworthy that the obtained cholesteric materials are shown to be very promising for the variety applications in optoelectronics and photonics. KW - liquid crystalline polymer KW - azobenzene KW - cholesteric phase KW - phototunable optical properties KW - selective light reflection KW - LC composites Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b09642 SN - 1944-8244 VL - 8 SP - 27227 EP - 27235 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schab-Balcerzak, Ewa A1 - Flakus, Henryk A1 - Jarczyk-Jedryka, Anna A1 - Konieczkowska, Jolanta A1 - Siwy, Mariola A1 - Bijak, Katarzyna A1 - Sobolewska, Anna A1 - Stumpe, Joachim T1 - Photochromic supramolecular azopolyimides based on hydrogen bonds JF - Optical materials : an international journal on the physics and chemistry of optical materials and their applications, including devices N2 - The approach of deriving new photoresponsive active supramolecular azopolymers based on the hydrogen bonds is described. Polymers with imide rings, i.e., poly(esterimide)s and poly(etherimide)s, with phenolic hydroxyl or carboxylic groups were applied as matrixes for the polymer dye supramolecular systems. Supramolecular films were built on the basis of the hydrogen bonds between the functional groups of the polymers and various azochromophores, that is, 4-phenylazophenol, 4-[4-(6-hydroxyhexy loxy)phenylazo]benzene, 4[4-(6-hexadecaneoxy)phenylazo]pyridine and 4-(4-hydroxyphenylazo)-pyridine. The hydrogen bonding interaction in azo-systems were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and for selected assembles by H-1 NMR technique. The obtained polyimide azo-assembles were characterized by X-ray diffraction and DSC measurements. H-bonds allow attaching a chromophore to each repeating unit of the polymer, thereby suppressing the macroscopic phase separation except for the systems based on 4-[4-(6-hydroxyhexyloxy)phenylazo]benzene. H-bonds systems were amorphous and revealed glass transition temperatures lower than for the polyimide matrixes (170-260 degrees C). The photoresponsive behavior of the azo-assemblies was tasted in holographic recording experiment. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Azobenzene KW - Polyimides KW - Photoinduced optical anisotropy KW - Surface relief grating Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optmat.2015.06.029 SN - 0925-3467 SN - 1873-1252 VL - 47 SP - 501 EP - 511 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ryabchun, Alexander A1 - Bobrovsky, Alexey A1 - Stumpe, Joachim A1 - Shibaev, Valery T1 - Electroinduced Diffraction Gratings in Cholesteric Polymer with Phototunable Helix Pitch JF - Advanced optical materials N2 - For the first time the cholesteric mixture containing nematic polymer with small amount of chiral-photochromic dopant is used for electroinduced diffraction gratings production. The gratings are obtained by applying electric field to the planar-aligned cholesteric polymer layer causing its periodical distortion. Material developed permits manipulating supramolecular helical structure by means of UV exposure resulting in helix untwisting. Photo-controlling of helix pitch brings to change parameters of the electroinduced gratings. Due to macromolecular "nature" of the material one can easily stabilize electroinduced gratings by fast sample cooling. All-known cholesteric grating types are realized in the studied polymer material. It is observed that the grating vector can be oriented along or perpendicular to the rubbing direction of the cell. It is shown that the diffraction efficiency is dictated by grating type and the amplitude of the applied electric field and can achieve about 80%. Moreover, the period of gratings can be tuned upon UV light illumination. The possibility of 2D gratings creation is also demonstrated. The described material and approach gives an opportunity to easily fabricate a variety of diffraction gratings with flexibly controllable parameters. Such gratings can be potentially applied in optics, optoelectronics, and photonics as intelligent diffraction elements. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/adom.201500293 SN - 2195-1071 VL - 3 IS - 10 SP - 1462 EP - 1469 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stumpe, Joachim A1 - Sakhno, O. A1 - Gritsai, Y. A1 - Rosenhauer, R. A1 - Fischer, Th. A1 - Rutloh, Michael A1 - Schaal, F. A1 - Weidenfeld, S. A1 - Jetter, M. A1 - Michler, P. A1 - Pruss, C. A1 - Osten, W. T1 - Active and passive LC based polarization elements JF - Molecular crystals and liquid crystals N2 - Passive and active polarization elements were created by surface and bulk photo-alignment of LCs, reactive LCs, photo-sensitive LCP and photo-curable monomer/LC composites. The use of different photo-sensitive liquid crystalline materials for the development of highly anisotropic elements with high spatial resolution and stability or, alternatively, fast switch ability will be discussed. Photo-active and voltage tunable polarization and diffraction elements are presented. For active micro-optic application a photo-addressed patterned retarder was created. Electrically switchable diffraction gratings were generated by interference exposure of photo-curable LC composites at room temperature characterized by droplet free morphology. These polarization sensitive diffraction elements are characterized be excellent optical properties and low switching times. KW - electrically switchable gratings. KW - diffractive elements KW - polymer/LC composites KW - switchable retarder KW - polarization gratings KW - Polarization elements Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/15421406.2014.917503 SN - 1542-1406 SN - 1563-5287 VL - 594 IS - 1 SP - 140 EP - 149 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nagy, Zsuzsanna T. A1 - Heinrich, Benoit A1 - Guillon, Daniel A1 - Tomczyk, Jaroslaw A1 - Stumpe, Joachim A1 - Donnio, Bertrand T1 - Heterolithic azobenzene-containing supermolecular tripedal liquid crystals self-organizing into highly segregated bilayered smectic phases JF - Journal of materials chemistry N2 - Synthesis, self-organization, and optical properties of supermolecular tripedal liquid crystals incorporating various prototypical mesogenic units such as alkoxy-azobenzene (AZB), alkoxy-biphenylene (BPH) or alkoxy-cyanobiphenyl (OCB) derivatives are reported. Different molecular systems were designed in order to sequentially incorporate the smectogenic-like alkoxy-azobenzene-based chromophore within the molecular structure, whose relative proportion is selectively varied by exchanging with the other mesogens. A divergent synthetic mode was elaborated for their synthesis, starting from the regioselective functionalization of the phloroglucinol-based (PG) inner core. This methodology allowed the preparation of several sets of unconventional tripedal oligomers with conjugated heterolithic structures (made of different blocks, e.g. PG(6)AZB(x)BPH(3-x) and PG(6)AZB(x)OCB(3-x), x = 1 or 2) along the homolithic parents (all identical blocks, e.g. PG(z)AZB(3), z = 6 or 11, z is the number of methylene in the spacer between PG and the protomesogen, PG(6)BPH(3), and PG(6)OCB(3)), respectively. Essentially all the synthesized systems behave as thermotropic liquid crystals and show various types of highly segregated multilayered smectic phases, or, in one case, a nematic phase, depending on the nature of the constitutive anisotropic blocks and on the molecular topology (homolithic versus heterolithic, mesogenic ratio x : 3 - x). The effects of these structural modifications on the mesomorphism (mesophase structures, temperature ranges, and thermodynamic stability) have been investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and small-angle X-ray diffraction experiments combined with dilatometric measurements. Models describing the various supramolecular organizations of these tripedes into such multilayered structures are proposed and discussed. Preliminary results of the investigations of their optical properties will also be presented. Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c2jm33751g SN - 0959-9428 VL - 22 IS - 35 SP - 18614 EP - 18622 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tomczyk, Jaroslaw A1 - Sobolewska, Anna A1 - Nagy, Zsuzsanna T. A1 - Guillon, Daniel A1 - Donnio, Bertrand A1 - Stumpe, Joachim T1 - Photo- and thermal-processing of azobenzene-containing star-shaped liquid crystals JF - Journal of materials chemistry : C, Materials for optical and electronic devices N2 - A new class of star-shaped, liquid crystalline, low-molecular weight compounds functionalized with photochromic azobenzene and mesogenic groups was investigated in terms of light-induced anisotropy. The behaviour of the materials under the action of light with simultaneous or subsequent thermal treatment was examined with respect to the induction of anisotropy. The unconventional UV light treatment prior to the irradiation with linearly polarized light allowed induction of very high values of anisotropy (D = 0.77) at room temperature. Moreover, the simultaneous action of light and temperature led to the induction of higher values of dichroism in comparison with anisotropy generated by the standard procedure. Subsequent thermal treatment led to dewetting and the formation of 3D macroscopic stripe- and dome-like structures for one of the investigated compounds. Despite photoinduction of anisotropy by a single beam, the formation of polarization and surface relief gratings by two-beam interference pattern was also investigated. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c2tc00627h SN - 2050-7526 VL - 1 IS - 5 SP - 924 EP - 932 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heydari, Esmaeil A1 - Pastoriza-Santos, Isabel A1 - Flehr, Roman A1 - Liz-Marzan, Luis M. A1 - Stumpe, Joachim T1 - Nanoplasmonic enhancement of the emission of semiconductor polymer composites JF - The journal of physical chemistry : C, Nanomaterials and interfaces N2 - We report on the influence of localized surface plasmon resonance excitation of Au@SiO2 core-shell nanoparticles on the amplified spontaneous emission of a semiconductor polymer composite (F8BT/MEH-PPV). Au@SiO2 nanoparticles are compatible with the donor-acceptor polymer matrix and get uniformly distributed within the whole polymer film. The plasmon resonance band of the nanoparticles correlates with both the emission and excitation spectra of the polymer composite, as well as with the donor emission and acceptor excitation spectra. We demonstrate that resonantly excited Au@SiO2 nanoparticles enhance the amplified spontaneous emission and the modal gain of the polymer films. The measurement of influential factors reveals that the emission is enhanced predominantly by the increase of acceptor excitation rate, which is accompanied by depletion of the FRET efficiency and increase of quantum yield. The enhancement factor is increased by both introducing a higher loading of plasmonic nanoparticles in the polymer film and increasing the excitation energy. This work shows that these plasmonic nanoantennas are able to enhance the stimulated emission of semiconductor polymers by improving the size mismatch between the excitation light and the emitting polymer. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/jp404068m SN - 1932-7447 VL - 117 IS - 32 SP - 16577 EP - 16583 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER -