Transfer and Amplification of Iodine-Based Diacetylene Amphiphiles to Anisotropic Optical Properties by Uniaxial Orientation in Thin Films

For flexible displays, there is a desperate need for a broadband coatable polarizer that can absorb light in a specific direction. Conventional polarizers fabricated by the polymer stretching process are too thick (50-200 μm) to be used as polarizers that can be applied to antireflective films in flexible displays. For the development of the broadband coatable thin film polarizer, diacetylene (DA) amphiphiles containing I- or I3- are newly designed and synthesized, and the content of DA amphiphiles in the 4,6-decadiyne solvent is optimized to form a lyotropic liquid crystal (LLC) phase. Topochemical polymerization of uniaxially oriented iodine-based DA not only stabilizes the film but also broadens the polarization light region from 350 to 700 nm. The transfer and amplification of iodine and DA functions in uniaxially oriented thin films enable the fabrication of broadband coatable thin film polarizers.