Functional and self-assembling materials have found increasing attraction due to their wide range in tunability and ability to respond to weak external stimuli. Development of materials such as wearable devices and adaptive color textiles can be achieved by incorporation of liquid crystals into flexible architectures. Here, encapsulation of a nematic liquid crystal <i>N</i>-(methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline (MBBA) into the core of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) microfibers was accomplished via coaxial electrospinning and their morphology was characterized by SEM and optical microscopy.  The microfibers show a reversible temperature sensitive birefringence that could be tuned by core flow rate as evidenced by DSC. A profound enhancement in Raman polarization for MBBA occurred when encapsulated in PVP sheath compared to bulk and the core and sheath diameters could be determined quantitatively. Polarized 2D Raman mapping and dielectric relaxation experiments demonstrate the surrounding polymer sheath significantly controls MBBA to align with their long axis perpendicular to the fiber direction.<br/>

Encapsulation of liquid crystal MBBA in electrospun coaxial fibers

256th National Meeting (2018)

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