Biphasic liquids with shape-shifting and bistable microdomains

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Soft Matter Physics
• Liquid Crystals

Background:

• Biphasic liquids form stable states like wetting films and droplets.
• Achieving rapid, reversible transformations between liquid morphologies is challenging due to relaxation pathways.
• Long-lived microdomain states are desired for dynamic property tuning in materials.

Purpose of the Study:

• To discover a biphasic liquid system capable of shape-shifting and forming long-lived microdomains.
• To enable rapid and reversible transformations between distinct liquid morphologies.
• To explore the potential for tunable optical properties in dynamic liquid systems.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a biphasic liquid system composed of isotropic oil and liquid crystalline oil.
• Applied transient low-frequency (10 Hz) AC electric fields to induce transformation from wetting films to spherical domains.
• Employed high-frequency (1 kHz) AC electric fields to trigger solitons and rapid domain coalescence, reverting to the wetting film state.

Main Results:

• Discovered shape-shifting and bistable microdomains in an isotropic and liquid crystalline oil mixture.
• Demonstrated reversible transformation between wetting films (original shape) and spherical domains (temporary shape) lasting over 24 hours.
• Achieved rapid (<3 s) recovery of the wetting film morphology via soliton formation and domain coalescence.

Conclusions:

• The developed biphasic liquid system exhibits fully reversible, long-lived emulsion formation.
• This system allows for rapid switching between distinct, persistent optical states.
• Potential applications include materials synthesis, microchemical systems, and tunable optical metamaterials.