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Synthesis and Exfoliation of Discotic Zirconium Phosphates to Obtain Colloidal Liquid Crystals
Published on: May 25, 2016
Interplay of Electrostatic Dipoles and Monopoles with Elastic Interactions in Nematic Liquid Crystal Nanocolloids
Blaise Fleury1, Bohdan Senyuk1, Mykola Tasinkevych2,3
1Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
Abstract:
Doping of nematic liquid crystals with colloidal nanoparticles presents a rich soft matter platform for controlling material properties and discovering diverse condensed matter phases. We describe nematic nanocolloids that simultaneously exhibit strong electrostatic monopole and dipole moments and yield competing long-range anisotropic interactions. Combined with interactions due to orientational elasticity and order parameter gradients of the nematic host medium, they lead to diverse forms of self-assembly both in the bulk of an aligned liquid crystal and when one-dimensionally confined by singular topological defect lines. Such nanocolloids exhibit facile responses to electric fields. We demonstrate electric reconfigurations of nanocolloidal pair-interactions and discuss how our findings may lead to realizing ferroelectric and dielectric molecular-colloidal fluids with different point group symmetries.
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