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Updated: May 2, 2026
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Synthesis and Exfoliation of Discotic Zirconium Phosphates to Obtain Colloidal Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 25, 2016
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Quasicrystalline tilings with nematic colloidal platelets.
Jayasri Dontabhaktuni1, Miha Ravnik, Slobodan Žumer
1Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Summary
Researchers numerically modeled quasicrystalline colloidal lattices using pentagonal platelets in nematic liquid crystals. This breakthrough enables hierarchical self-assembly and tunable length scales for advanced materials.
Area of Science:
- Soft Matter Physics
- Materials Science
- Crystallography
Background:
- Nematic fluids enable self-assembly of regular colloidal structures.
- Existing structures include chains, clusters, and crystals, but not quasicrystals.
- Soft-matter functionalities like binding, symmetry breaking, and memory have been observed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate the possibility of achieving quasicrystalline colloidal lattices.
- To explore the formation of Penrose P1 tiling using pentagonal colloidal platelets.
- To investigate the energetic stability and hierarchical properties of these structures.
Main Methods:
- Numerical modeling of colloidal platelets in nematic liquid crystals.
- Utilizing pentagonal platelet shape and specific surface anchoring conditions.
- Bottom-up construction via assembly of dense clusters (boat, rhombus, star).
Main Results:
- Successful numerical achievement of quasicrystalline colloidal lattices (Penrose P1 tiling).
- Energetic stabilization with binding energies up to 2500 kBT.
- Demonstration of hierarchical substitution tiling (hierarchical pentagulation).
- Achieved structures avoid non-quasicrystalline configurations.
Conclusions:
- Pentagonal platelets in nematic liquid crystals can form stable quasicrystalline structures.
- Symmetry breaking from platelet shape and anchoring is crucial.
- The design allows for a continuous range of length scales (10 nm to 10 μm).
- Potential applications in quasicrystalline photonics across multiple frequency ranges.
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