Light-activated helical inversion in cholesteric liquid crystal microdroplets

Sleczkowski, Piotr; Zhou, Ye; Iamsaard, Supitchaya; de Pablo, Juan J.; Katsonis, Nathalie; Lacaze, Emmanuelle

doi:10.1073/pnas.1720742115

Title: Light-activated helical inversion in cholesteric liquid crystal microdroplets

Journal Article · Fri Apr 06 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720742115· OSTI ID:1511034

Sleczkowski, Piotr ^[1]; Zhou, Ye ^[2]; Iamsaard, Supitchaya ^[3]; de Pablo, Juan J. ^[2]; Katsonis, Nathalie ^[3]; Lacaze, Emmanuelle ^[4]

Univ. of Twente, Enschede (The Netherlands); Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France)
The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
Univ. of Twente, Enschede (The Netherlands)
Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France)

Cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) droplets exhibit nontrivial topological features, which are controlled by the ratio between the cholesteric pitch and the droplet radius. The radial spherical structure (RSS) is of particular interest, as it reveals an onion-like concentric organization of the cholesteric helices, leading to the expression of spherical Bragg microcavities. Using an overcrowded alkene-based unidirectional molecular motor as a dopant, we show that the topological defect structure in the droplet can be activated by illumination. By using appropriate molecular motor concentrations, light can either break the symmetry of topological defects (as observed for the bent-twisted bipolar structure), or it can induce inversion of handedness in an onion-like organization (in the case of RSS). This latter feature may pave the way toward alternative activation modes of lasers based on cholesteric droplets. By also studying CLC droplets once they have reached full photoconversion at photostationary state (PSS), we highlight that the strong influence of confinement on the droplets structure occurs to the same extent after the helix inversion event. Here our results are interpreted in terms of numerical simulations of the droplets’ structure, which shed light on the major role played by curvature close to the droplets’ center, this latter one becoming dominant when the droplet radius is small.

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Research Organization:: Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0004025

OSTI ID:: 1511034

Journal Information:: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 115, Issue 17; ISSN 0027-8424

Publisher:: National Academy of SciencesCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 26 works

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