scholarly journals Correction: Flexoelectric behavior of bimesogenic liquid crystals in the nematic phase – observation of a new self-assembly pattern at the twist-bend nematic and the nematic interface

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (47) ◽  
pp. 10217-10217
Author(s):  
R. Balachandran ◽  
V. P. Panov ◽  
Y. P. Panarin ◽  
J. K. Vij ◽  
M. G. Tamba ◽  
...  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (38) ◽  
pp. 8179-8184 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Balachandran ◽  
V. P. Panov ◽  
Y. P. Panarin ◽  
J. K. Vij ◽  
M. G. Tamba ◽  
...  

Flexoelectricity in a bimesogenic liquid crystal exhibiting the Ntb phase is higher than that in bimesogens without it. The N–Ntb interface shows a new periodic self-assembly pattern.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Mac Fhionnlaoich ◽  
Stephen Schrettl ◽  
Nicholas B. Tito ◽  
Ye Yang ◽  
Malavika Nair ◽  
...  

The arrangement of nanoscale building blocks into patterns with microscale periodicity is challenging to achieve via self-assembly processes. Here, we report on the phase transition-driven collective assembly of gold nanoparticles in a thermotropic liquid crystal. A temperature-induced transition from the isotropic to the nematic phase leads to the assembly of individual nanometre-sized particles into arrays of micrometre-sized aggregates, whose size and characteristic spacing can be tuned by varying the cooling rate. This fully reversible process offers hierarchical control over structural order on the molecular, nanoscopic, and microscopic level and is an interesting model system for the programmable patterning of nanocomposites with access to micrometre-sized periodicities.


2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (41) ◽  
pp. 15286-15289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bartolome Soberats ◽  
Masafumi Yoshio ◽  
Takahiro Ichikawa ◽  
Satomi Taguchi ◽  
Hiroyuki Ohno ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinying Lu ◽  
Zelong Zhang ◽  
Daoren Yan ◽  
Zhiyong Zhang ◽  
Jintao Guan ◽  
...  

<p></p><p>Azobenzene-based bent-core liquid crystals demonstrate a variety of mesomorphic behaviors and photochromic properties which are desirable for optical switching. Nowadays azobenzene-based bent-core liquid crystal (ABLC) compounds usually exhibit at least one of the following traits which are unfavorable for practical applications: (1) narrow temperature windows of nematic phases, (2) high phase transition temperature, and (3) long period of light stimulation to reach photostationary states. In this study, a series of ABLC compounds <b>4a–4g</b> were synthesized by adding azo functional groups and chlorine substituent to the central bent-cores to form 4-chloro-1,3-dizaophenylene bent-cores. These ABLC compounds were characterized by i. fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), <sup>1</sup>H and <sup>13</sup>C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and mass spectrometry (MS) for their structures, ii. differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy (POM) for their mesogenic properties, and iii. ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis) and POM for their photosensitivity. The experimental results show that all compounds exhibited broad temperature windows of mesogenic phases. In particular, compound <b>4c</b> showed a broad temperature window of 63.8 °C for nematic phase. Molecular simulations indicate that the molecular dipole moments of compounds <b>4a–4g</b> are closely associated with the temperatures of Sm – N phase transition and temperature ranges of nematic phases. In addition, simulation results reveal that the terminal alkyl chains exhibit a diphasic effect on the molecular polarity: extending the terminal chain can initially reduce and then increase the molecular dipole moments due to the severe structural disorder of overly extended terminal chain. These findings indicate that the intermolecular forces play a vital role in shaping the mesogenic behavior of ABLCs. Comprehensive characterizations of photochromatic properties show that <b>4c</b> was highly photosensitive and displayed rapid photoisomerization processes. At room temperature, compound <b>4c </b>dissolved in ethyl acetate solution can reach photostationary state in 10 seconds. At 95 °C, compound <b>4c</b> in nematic phase became isotropic liquid under UV-irradiation in 3 seconds due to the forward <i>trans – cis</i> photoisomerization and can be restored to be nematic under natural visible light in 5 seconds because of the backward <i>cis – trans</i> photoisomerization. This study linking the mechanistic details with mesogenic properties provides valuable insights to improve future design of azobenzene bent-core liquid crystals for practical applications especially in photonic applications.</p><p><br></p><p>Pertinent molecular structure files (mol2) can be downloaded from</p><p><a href="https://github.com/er1czz/ABLC">https://github.com/er1czz/ABLC</a><br></p><p></p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
C.F. Castro-Guerrero ◽  
A.B. Morales-Cepeda ◽  
M.R. Díaz-Guillén ◽  
F. Delgado-Arroyo ◽  
F.A. López-González

Abstract Cellulose nanocrystals were extracted from cotton. The cellulose nanocrystals made a self-assembly structure when dried under slow conditions, as it was revealed by the characterization made to the material. The AFM images of the nanocrystals showed that they had a changing local orientation, pointing in a preferred direction that underwent a periodic change. This periodic change resembles the orientation of a chiral nematic phase. The TEM images showed that the nanocrystals had a rod-like appearance with average length size of 98.5 nm and a diameter of 4.7 nm. The TEM characterization showed the nanocrystals with more details than AFM. In this paper, the self-assembling of CNC was observed by AFM, and further investigations were done by TEM, deconvoluting the process of CNC nanorods aggregation.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Mandle ◽  
John W. Goodby

We compare the order parameters, orientational distribution functions (ODF) and heliconical tilt angles of the TB phase exhibited by a liquid-crystalline dimer (CB7CB) to a tetramer (O47) and hexamer (O67) by SAXS/WAXS. Following the N-TB phase transition we find that all order parameters decrease, and while 〈P2 〉 remains positive 〈P4 〉 becomes negative. For all three materials the order parameter 〈P6 〉 is near zero in both phases. The ODF is sugarloaf-like in the nematic phase and volcano-like in the TB phase, allowing us to estimate the heliconical tilt angle of each material and its thermal evolution. The heliconical tilt angle appears to be largely independent of the material studied despite the differing number of mesogenic units.


1970 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 500-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chung-peng Fan ◽  
Michael J. Stephen

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (44) ◽  
pp. 27238-27244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa F. Dietrich ◽  
Peter J. Collings ◽  
Thomas Sottmann ◽  
Per Rudquist ◽  
Frank Giesselmann

Recent measurements of the elastic constants in lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) have revealed an anomalously small twist elastic constant compared to the splay and bend constants. Interestingly, measurements of the elastic constants in the micellar lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) that are formed by surfactants, by far the most ubiquitous and studied class of LLCs, are extremely rare and report only the ratios of elastic constants and do not include the twist elastic constant. By means of light scattering, this study presents absolute values of the elastic constants and their corresponding viscosities for the nematic phase of a standard LLC composed of disk-shaped micelles. Very different elastic moduli are found. While the splay elastic constant is in the typical range of 1.5 pN as is true in general for thermotropic nematics, the twist elastic constant is found to be one order of magnitude smaller (0.30 pN) and almost two orders of magnitude smaller than the bend elastic constant (21 pN). These results demonstrate that a small twist elastic constant is not restricted to the special case of LCLCs, but is true for LLCs in general. The reason for this extremely small twist elastic constant very likely originates with the flexibility of the assemblies that are the building blocks of both micellar and chromonic lyotropic liquid crystals.


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