Dependence of retardation dispersion on the ultraviolet polarization direction during photopolymerization of self-organized smectic reactive mesogen molecules

We investigated the dependence of the retardation dispersion on the polarization direction of ultraviolet (UV) light during the photopolymerization of self-organized smectic reactive mesogen (RM) molecules. RM retarder film that was photopolymerized with UV light linearly polarized parallel to the layer plane showed negative dispersion (ND) of retardation for a wide range of UV polymerization temperatures. On the other hand, film that was photopolymerized with unpolarized UV light showed negative dispersion in a narrow range of UV polymerization temperatures. With a certain UV polymerization temperature, the dispersion of retardation was converted from positive to negative, depending on the UV polarization.