Dynamic Aspect of Electro-Opto-Mechanical Effects in Swollen Nematic Elastomers

The nematic elastomers swollen by low molecular mass liquid crystals exhibit a macroscopic deformation with a significant change in birefringence in fast response to electric fields. We experimentally characterize the dynamics of this ``electro-opto-mechanical effect.'' The optical and mechanical rise times (in response to field-on) decrease in nearly proportion to the square of field strength, while the corresponding decay times (in response to field-off) are almost independent of field strength. The optical rise and decay times are about one order of magnitude smaller than the mechanical ones. We also propose a minimal model to describe the main features of both static and dynamic characteristics of this phenomenon observed experimentally. 1) Urayama, K., Honda, S., Takigawa, T., \textit{Macromolecules}, \textbf{2006}, $39$, 1943. 2) Fukunaga, A., Urayama, K., Takigawa, T., DeSimone, A., Teresi, L., \textit{Macromolecules}, in press.