Electrostatically controlled surface boundary conditions in nematic liquid crystals and colloids

Mundoor, Haridas; Senyuk, Bohdan; Almansouri, Mahmoud; Park, Sungoh; Fleury, Blaise; Smalyukh, Ivan I.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aax4257

Electrostatically controlled surface boundary conditions in nematic liquid crystals and colloids

Journal Article · Wed Sep 04 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Science Advances

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax4257· OSTI ID:1611387

^[1]; ^[2]; Almansouri, Mahmoud ^[2]; ^[2]; ^[2]; ^[2]

Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); DOE/OSTI
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

Differing from isotropic fluids, liquid crystals exhibit highly anisotropic interactions with surfaces, which define boundary conditions for the alignment of constituent rod-like molecules at interfaces with colloidal inclusions and confining substrates. We show that surface alignment of the nematic molecules can be controlled by harnessing the competing aligning effects of surface functionalization and electric field arising from surface charging and bulk counterions. The control of ionic content in the bulk and at surfaces allows for tuning orientations of shape-anisotropic particles like platelets within an aligned nematic host and for changing the orientation of director relative to confining substrates. The ensuing anisotropic elastic and electrostatic interactions enable colloidal crystals with reconfigurable symmetries and orientations of inclusions.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0010305; SC0019293

OSTI ID:: 1611387

Journal Information:: Science Advances, Journal Name: Science Advances Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 5; ISSN 2375-2548

Publisher:: AAASCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited By (2)

Colloidal interactions and unusual crystallization versus de-mixing of elastic multipoles formed by gold mesoflowers Yuan, Ye; Tasinkevych, Mykola; Smalyukh, Ivan I. Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-14031-2	journal	January 2020
Colloidal interactions and unusual crystallization versus de-mixing of elastic multipoles formed by gold mesoflowers Yuan, Ye; Tasinkevych, Mykola; Smalyukh, Ivan I. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2001.00910	text	January 2020

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