Cholesteric Spherical Reflectors (CSRs) are omnidirectional selective retroreflectors enabled by the ability of cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) to self-assemble with helicoidally modulated long-range orientational order, turning them into a liquid chiral photonic crystal with one-dimensional periodicity. The liquid state allows us to easily mold the CLC into spherical units, with stabilizers in the surrounding liquid phases ensuring the appropriate boundary conditions. By varying the composition of the CLC we can continuously tune the wavelength band of retroreflection across the visible spectrum and into the ultraviolet (UV) as well as infrared (IR) regimes, choose whether the CRSs reflect right- or left-handed circular polarization, and we can make them polymerizable, such that the CSRs are easily turned into solids after annealing, allowing easy manipulation and incorporation into diverse matrices. This opens for numerous innovative applications, from anti-counterfeiting and supply chain track-and-trace solutions, via human-invisible signage optimized for robots and AR device wayfinding, to the pixelation of structural color for generating non-spectral colors without absorption or indiscriminate scattering, and even enhanced-sensitivity disease testing. In my talk, I will briefly introduce the concept of CSRs and highlight their salient features, and then I will focus on our on-going efforts to solve important societally and industrially relevant problems by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by CSRs.
Until recently, organic vapor sensors using liquid crystals (LCs) have employed rigid glass substrates for confining the LC, and bulky equipment for vapor detection. Previously, we demonstrated that coaxially electrospinning nematic LC within the core of polymer fibers provides an alternative and improved form factor for confinement. This enables ppm level sensitivity to harmful industrial organics, such as toluene, while giving the flexibility of textile-like sheets (imparted by polymer encapsulation). Moreover, toluene vapor responses of the LC-core fiber mats were visible macroscopically with the naked eye depending on the morphology of the fibers produced, and whether they were oriented in specific geometries (aligned, or random). We identified two types of responses: one corresponds to the LC transition from nematic to isotropic, and the other we suggest is due to an anchoring change at the LC-polymer interface that influences the alignment. While we need to study the presence that defects can have in more detail, we noted that fiber mat thickness is crucial in attempting to understand how and why we are able to visualize two responses in aligned LC-fiber mats. Ultimately, we noted that the response of the polymer sheath itself (softening) to organic vapor exposure affects the liquid crystal confinement in the core. From the microscopic point of view, this will influence the threshold concentration that fibers in a mat will overall respond to. In this paper we will discuss three findings the morphologies enabling LC-core fiber mat response to vapor seen both micro- and macroscopically, how thickness of the fiber mat can play a role in the visualization of the responses, and the effect that the polymer structure has in the mat’s sensitivity threshold.
Liquid crystals (LCs) are very attractive hosts for the organization of anisotropic nanoparticles such as carbon nanotubes
(CNTs) because of the macroscopic organization resulting in properties of nanoparticles manifest at a macroscopic scale.
Different types of LCs have demonstrated the ability to organize nanotubes, showing the generality of the approach, i.e.,
that the liquid crystallinity per se is the driving factor for the organization. Compared to standard nanotube composites
(e.g. with disordered polymer hosts) the introduction of carbon nanotubes into an LC allows not only the transfer of the
outstanding CNT properties to the macroscopic phase, providing strength and conductivity, but these properties also
become anisotropic, following the transfer of the orientational order from the LC to the CNTs. The LC molecular
structure plays an important even if ancillary role since it enters in the surface interactions, fulfilling a mediating action
between the particle and the bulk of the LC. Isolated nanotubes can be obtained by optimized dispersions at lower
concentrations and this process requires the use or development of tailored strategies like using solvents or even another
LC for pre-dispersing CNTs. Aggregates or networks can be observed in poor dispersions and at higher nanoparticle
concentrations. In those, due to surface interactions, the LC behaviour can be strongly affected with changes in phase
sequences or transition temperatures and the effect is expected to be more pronounced as the concentration of nanotubes
increases. We present preliminary investigations and observations on nanotube – LC systems based on a smectic LC
host.
The efficiency of the conduction of photocurrent in discotic liquid crystals is known to depend on the quality of the
columnar organization. Solvents have shown to be able to influence the formation of wire structures on substrates
promoting very long and ordered wired formations or bulkier structures depending on the affinity of the solvent with
parts of the molecular structure of discotics. Here we present a study on the effect of solvents when the liquid crystal is
confined between two substrates with the columns running perpendicular to them, geometry used in solar cells. We
focused on toluene and dodecane, solvents that have shown to promote on substrates the formation of aligned and long
nanowires and bulk large and isolated fibers, respectively. The phase transition behavior indicates that toluene does not
interfere with the columnar formation while dodecane strongly influence increasing the disorder in the structure.
We recently demonstrated that colloidal crystal arrangements of monodisperse droplets or shells of planar-aligned cholesteric liquid crystal exhibit intricate patterns of circularly polarized reflection spots of different colors. The spots appear as a result of photonic cross communication between droplets, hence the patterns reflect the macroscopic arrangement of droplets or shells. Apart from being an interesting optical phenomenon, it offers attractive application opportunities in photonics and beyond, due to the unique characteristics of the patterns. It turns out that the optical quality of shells is much enhanced compared to that of droplets, hence we focus our attention primarily on shells, of varying thickness. Here we analyze and explain the intriguing textures arising when studying planar-aligned short-pitch cholesteric shells in transmission polarizing optical microscopy. In this case, the texture reflects the properties of each individual shell, without any sign of cross communication, yet also this pattern holds some fascinating mysteries. These can only be elucidated by considering all the peculiar optical properties of cholesterics together, as well as the unusual situation given by the spherical shell geometry.
Drops or shells of a planar-aligned short-pitch cholesteric liquid crystal exhibit unique optical properties due to the combination of Bragg reflection in the cholesteric helix and a radial orientation of the helix axis. If such a droplet is illuminated from above, light is reflected into a continuous set of cones, the opening angles of which depend on where on the droplet the light hits its surface. For the wavelength that fulfills the Bragg condition the reflection is dramatically enhanced, yielding the light cones colored. A photonic cross communication scheme arises for certain angles, reflecting light back to the observer from a different droplet than the one originally illuminated. This gives rise to an intricate pattern of colored and circularly polarized spots. A number of interesting applications may be developed based on this pattern, e.g. in identification and authentication devices. We have carried out a detailed spectrophotometric analysis of the patterns, localized to individual spot maxima. A quantitative comparison between the measured spectra and the reflection wavelength expected from a model for the pattern generation allows us to conclude that the droplets are in fact not spherical but slightly ellipsoidal.
Lyotropic Liquid Crystals (LCs) are attractive materials as host systems for nanoparticles, in particular for carbon nanotubes (CNTs), due to the LC templating and dispersing action. Since carbon nanotubes have many remarkable properties their presence could also influence the aligning hosts and such effects need to be taken into account in CNTLC composites. CNTs can be dispersed efficiently in surfactant-based lyotropic hosts that can be removed after their templating action, being water based. However, residual surfactant has a detrimental effect on the nanotube properties and it becomes important to find ways to minimize its amount in CNT composites. In the present work we use, for CNT alignment, a lyotropic nematic LC host with a very low surfactant concentration, based on charge combination of cationic and anionic surfactant molecules. Small variations in the molar ratio of the two surfactants, still at a fixed total surfactant amount, yield a very different LC behavior. CNTs could be successfully dispersed in the host forming an overall low-surfactant composite. Interestingly, the presence of nanotubes strongly influences the behavior of the host, bringing a stabilization of the LC phase.
"Wearable technology" or "smart textiles" are concepts that are very rapidly gaining in attention around the
world, as industry as well as academia are making major advances in integrating advanced devices with various
textiles around our household. The technological challenges involved in this development are however considerable,
calling for new solutions, new materials and truly original thinking. An attractive approach to realize
certain classes of wearable devices may be to use textile fibers functionalized by responsive materials such as
liquid crystals, normally not connected to textiles. We can produce non-woven textiles with such fibers by means
of electrospinning, a technique for producing very thin polymer fibers that can be uniform or with core-sheath
geometries. Since the core can be made out of traditionally non-spinnable materials we can use coaxial electrospinning
(one fluid spun inside another) to produce composite fibers with a core of liquid crystal inside a
polymer sheath. The resulting fibers constitute an entirely new configuration for applying liquid crystals, giving
the fibers functionality and responsiveness. For instance, with a cholesteric core we can produce non-woven mats
with iridescent color that can be tuned (or removed) e.g. by heating or cooling. In this paper I describe our
method of producing these novel functionalized fibers and their characterization, and I will discuss the directions
for future research and application possibilities, e.g. in clothing-integrated sensors and indicators.
We present here the successful preparation of liquid crystalline core-shell elastomers via a microfluidic double-emulsion
process. The customized set-up allows for a temperature-controlled fabrication of the core-shell particles from a
thermoresponsive mesogenic monomer. The nematic liquid crystalline shell is filled with a non-mesogenic core of
silicone oil. To verify the core-shell structure with optical microscopy, we prepared particles with a colored core using a
red dye. We were also able to micro-manipulate the particles and penetrate them with a small glass capillary to extract
the liquid core.
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