Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystals Actuated by a Rotary Triboelectric Nanogenerator

In this work, polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) under an applied electric field are actuated by a rotary triboelectric nanogenerator (r-TENG). Conventional PDLCs generally rely on high DC voltages for on-off switching, but they can also be effectively switched on and off using an moderate hi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE photonics technology letters 2022-12, Vol.34 (24), p.1-1
Main Authors: Cheng, Ko-Ting, Guo, Hengyu, Hsiao, Vincent K. S., He, Jr-Hau, Wang, Zhong Lin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Circuits
Dispersion
Electric fields
Liquid crystals
Nanogenerators
Nonlinear optics
Open circuit voltage
Optical polymers
Optical properties
Optical switches
Optoelectronic devices
Performance evaluation
photonic devices
Polymer-dispersed liquid crystals
Polymers
Power consumption
Short circuit currents
Switching
triboelectric nanogenerator
Triboelectricity
Velocity control
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Summary:In this work, polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) under an applied electric field are actuated by a rotary triboelectric nanogenerator (r-TENG). Conventional PDLCs generally rely on high DC voltages for on-off switching, but they can also be effectively switched on and off using an moderate high AC voltage at a frequency of several kHz with a smaller voltage. Here, we use a simple r-TENG to study the optical states of PDLC cells at different low frequencies (2-100 Hz) and simultaneous monitoring of the open-circuit voltage (V oc ) and short-circuit current (I sc ) to describe the optical performance of PDLC cells with different thicknesses. The results show that the I sc , provided by a r-TENG with a low V oc (1-2V), inside a PDLC cell is the key factor that determines its performance. Through the application of the r-TENG, we successfully demonstrate the on-off switching of nine PDLC cells connected in series with an area of 15 × 15 mm, and the power consumption is equal to that of a single PDLC cell. This research expands the potential applications of TENGs in photonics and also provides a way to improve the optical properties of PDLCs by connecting TENGs to achieve optimal performance for PDLC-related optoelectronic devices.
ISSN:1041-1135
1941-0174
DOI:10.1109/LPT.2022.3214502