Thermo-sensitive discotic colloidal liquid crystals
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Updated: Apr 25, 2026

Synthesis and Exfoliation of Discotic Zirconium Phosphates to Obtain Colloidal Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 25, 2016
Xuezhen Wang1, Di Zhao, Agustin Diaz
1Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-3122, USA. zcheng@tamu.edu.
Abstract:
We fabricated for the first time thermo-sensitive discotic liquid crystals by grafting poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) onto zirconium phosphate (ZrP) platelets using pre-irradiated polymerization. The I-N transition was investigated by adjusting the temperature for a single set of samples. We found that soft disks self-assemble into nematic liquid crystals in a wider thickness-over-diameter ratio than do hard disks.
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