Assessing the Quality of Solvent-Assisted Lipid Bilayers Formed at Different Phases and Aqueous Buffer Media: A QCM-D Study.

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are low-complexity biomimetic membranes, serving as popular experimental platforms to study membrane organization and lipid transfer, membrane uptake of nanoparticles and biomolecules, and many other processes. Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring has been utilized to probe the influence of several parameters on the quality of SLBs formed on Au- and SiO-coated sensors. The influence of the aqueous medium (i.

Calorimetric evidence for the existence of an intermediate phase between the ferroelectric nematic phase and the nematic phase in the liquid crystal RM734.

The idea that rodlike molecules possessing an electric dipole moment could exhibit a ferroelectric nematic phase was suggested more than a century ago. However, only recently such a phase has been reported for two quite different liquid crystals: RM734 [4-[(4-nitrophenoxy)carbonyl)]phenyl 2,4-dimethoxybenzoate] and DIO [2.3',4',5'-tetrafluoro[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl 2.

Criticality Controlling Mechanisms in Nematic Liquid Crystals.

We theoretically study the generic mechanisms that could establish critical behavior in nematic liquid crystals (NLCs). The corresponding free energy density terms should exhibit linear coupling with the nematic order parameter and, via this coupling, enhance the nematic order. We consider both temperature- and pressure-driven, order-disorder phase transitions.

Phase transitions study of the liquid crystal DIO with a ferroelectric nematic, a nematic, and an intermediate phase and of mixtures with the ferroelectric nematic compound RM734 by adiabatic scanning calorimetry.

High-resolution calorimetry has played a significant role in providing detailed information on phase transitions in liquid crystals. In particular, adiabatic scanning calorimetry (ASC), capable of providing simultaneous information on the temperature dependence of the specific enthalpy h(T) and on the specific heat capacity c_{p}(T), has proven to be an important tool to determine the order of transitions and render high-resolution information on pretransitional thermal behavior. Here we report on ASC results on the compound 2,3',4',5'-tetrafluoro[1,1'-biphenyl]-4-yl 2,6-difluoro-4-(5-propyl-1,3-dioxan-2-yl) benzoate (DIO) and on mixtures with 4-[(4-nitrophenoxy)carbonyl]phenyl 2,4-dimethoxybenzoate (RM734).

Polymer-dispersed liquid crystal elastomers as moldable shape-programmable material.

The current development of soft shape-memory materials often results in materials that are typically limited to the synthesis of thin-walled specimens and usually rely on complex, low-yield manufacturing techniques to fabricate macro-sized, solid three-dimensional objects. However, such geometrical limitations and slow production rates can significantly hinder their practical implementation. In this work, we demonstrate a shape-memory composite material that can be effortlessly molded into arbitrary shapes or sizes.