Flow-Induced Assembly of Colloidal Liquid Crystalline Nanosheets Toward Unidirectional Macroscopic Structures

Multiscale structures of anisotropic nanoparticles up to macroscopic scales are important in order to produce practical materials through nanotechnology. As an example of such structures, hierarchical organization of colloidal liquid crystals of niobium oxide nanosheets yields stripe textures observable by naked eyes. The stripes are generated by the growth of liquid crystalline domains (tactoids) and the alignment of the tactoids under an electric field and gravity applied in the directions orthogonal to each other. The nanosheets forming the tactoids are unidirectionally aligned along the flow induced by gravity, and the aligned tactoids are stretched to be connected each other to form the stripes. Time evolution of the stripes indicates that they are generated during the settlement of the nanosheets. The nanosheets are debundled with the settlement, and thus the stripes are gradually degenerated during the settlement. Larger tactoids cause faster nanosheet settlement and stripe degeneration. The electric field applied orthogonally to gravity has roles of pinning the nanosheets to slow down their settlement and retains the stripes for several hours.