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High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Light-Responsive Microstructures in Droplets of the Twist-Bend Nematic Phase
Alexey Eremin1, Hajnalka Nádasi1, Margarita Kurochkina1
1Otto von Guericke University, Institute of Physics , 39016 Magdeburg , Germany.
Abstract:
We report on the structure and optical manipulation of the director configurations in emulsions of liquid-crystalline droplets of a compound exhibiting the nematic (N) and the twist-bend nematic (NTB) phases. We demonstrate a decrease in the ratio of the bent elastic constant K33 to the splay constant K11 by nearly 2 orders of magnitude with decreasing temperature in the N phase. The director structures in liquid-crystal droplets doped with a photoswitchable surfactant without and under ultraviolet (UV) light are discussed in light of the strong elastic anisotropy of the investigated compound. We also compare our findings with the results obtained in doped nematic droplets of a conventional 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) liquid crystal. The dynamics of droplets in the NTB phase by UV light irradiation are also studied using polarizing and confocal microscopies.
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