Search results for "Liquid crystals"
showing 10 items of 74 documents
Iris-Like Tunable Aperture Employing Liquid-Crystal Elastomers
2014
A liquid-crystal elastomer (LCE) iris inspired by the human eye is demonstrated. With integrated polyimide-based platinum heaters, the LCE material is thermally actuated. The radial contraction direction, similar to a mammalian iris, is imprinted to the LCE by a custom-designed magnetic field. Actuation of the device is reproducible over multiple cycles and controllable at intermediate contraction states.
Microfluidic Preparation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators
2018
This paper focuses on the microfluidic process (and its parameters) to prepare actuating particles from liquid crystalline elastomers. The preparation usually consists in the formation of droplets containing low molar mass liquid crystals at elevated temperatures. Subsequently, these particle precursors are oriented in the flow field of the capillary and solidified by a crosslinking polymerization, which produces the final actuating particles. The optimization of the process is necessary to obtain the actuating particles and the proper variation of the process parameters (temperature and flow rate) and allows variations of size and shape (from oblate to strongly prolate morphologies) as wel…
A Columnar Liquid Crystal with Permanent Polar Order
2015
et al.
Supramolecular control of liquid crystals by doping with halogen-bonding dyes
2017
Introducing photochromic or polymeric dopants into nematic liquid crystals is a well-established method to create stimuli-responsive photonic materials with the ability to "control light with light". Herein, we demonstrate a new material design concept by showing that specific supramolecular interactions between the host liquid crystal and the guest dopants enhance the optical performance of the doped liquid crystals. By varying the type and strength of the dopant-host interaction, the phase-transition temperature, the order parameter of the guest molecules, and the diffraction signal in response to interference irradiation, can be accurately engineered. Our concept points out the potential…
Photoresponsive Halogen-Bonded Liquid Crystals: The Role of Aromatic Fluorine Substitution
2019
A new strategy for controlling the liquid crystalline and photophysical properties of supramolecular mesogens assembled via halogen bonding is reported. Changing the degree of fluorination at the halogen-bond donor of the supramolecular liquid crystal allows for the fine-tuning of the halogen bond strength and thereby provides control over the temperature range of the mesophase. At least three fluorine atoms have to be present to ensure efficient polarization of the halogen-bond donor and the formation of a mesophase. In addition, it was found that stilbazole acceptors are superior to their azopyridine counterparts in promoting stable liquid crystalline phases. The halogen-bond-driven supra…
Mesogens with Aggregation-Induced Emission Formed by Hydrogen Bonding
2019
In this contribution, we report a supramolecular approach toward mesogens showing aggregation-induced emission (AIE). AIE-active aromatic thioethers, acting as hydrogen-bond donors, were combined with alkoxystilbazoles as hydrogen-bond acceptors. Upon self-assembly, hydrogen-bonded complexes with monotropic liquid crystalline behavior were obtained. In addition, it was found that the introduction of a chiral citronellyl side chain leads to drastic bathochromic shift of the emission, which was not observed for linear alkyl chains. The mesomorphic behavior, as well as the photophysical properties as a solid and in the mesophase of the liquid crystalline assemblies, were studied in detail.
Photo-switching and -cyclisation of hydrogen bonded liquid crystals based on resveratrol
2020
A series of hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals based on resveratrol and resveratrone is reported and investigated with respect to their photo-switchability (at 405 nm) and photo-cyclisation (at 300 nm).
Chiral mesophases of hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals
2020
The chiral induction in hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals is investigated. The experimental study was accompanied by detailed density functional theory calculations and variable-temperature solid-state deuteron NMR measurements indicating that interactions between the linking groups of the hydrogen-bond accepting unit play a key role in the chiral induction.
Photoalignment and Surface-Relief-Grating Formation are Efficiently Combined in Low-Molecular-Weight Halogen-Bonded Complexes
2012
It is demonstrated that halogen bonding can be used to construct low-molecular-weight supramolecular complexes with unique light-responsive properties. In particular, halogen bonding drives the formation of a photoresponsive liquid-crystalline complex between a non-mesogenic halogen bond-donor molecule incorporating an azo group, and a non-mesogenic alkoxystilbazole moiety, acting as a halogen bond-acceptor. Upon irradiation with polarized light, the complex exhibits a high degree of photoinduced anisotropy (order parameter of molecular alignment > 0.5). Moreover, efficient photoinduced surface-relief-grating (SRG) formation occurs upon irradiation with a light interference pattern, with…
Improving the mesomorphic behaviour of supramolecular liquid crystals by resonance-assisted hydrogen bonding
2019
A systematic structure-property relationship study on hydrogen-bonded liquid crystals was performed, revealing the impact of resonance-assisted hydrogen bonds (RAHBs) on the self-assembling behavior of the supramolecular architecture. The creation of a six-membered intramolecular hydrogen-bonded ring acts as a counterpart to the self-organization between hydrogen bond donators and acceptors and determines thus the suprastructure. Variation of the hydrogen-bonding pattern allowed us to significantly improve the temperature range of the reported liquid crystalline assemblies.