A luminescent liquid crystal with multistimuli tunable emission colors based on different molecular packing structures

Abstract

A novel luminescent liquid crystal, (2Z,2′Z)-2,2′-(1,4-phenylene)bis(3-(4-(dodecyloxy)phenyl)acrylonitrile) (PDPA), is reported, which shows green, yellow and orange colors depending on the self-assembled structure. The luminescence of PDPA can vary between those three different colors invoked by mechanical shearing and thermal annealing. Moreover, an excellent liquid crystal phase transition of PDPA is observed using polarized optical microscopy (POM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. Finally, a prototype device is fabricated that demonstrates rewritable fluorescence optical recording with multistimuli luminescence tuning.