Through the looking glass: A reflection color transition is demonstrated in a smectic liquid crystal doped with a photochromic azobenzene and a chiral agent with high helical twisting power. The reflection color can be switched reversibly due to the isomerization of azobenzene upon UV/visible irradiation.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cphc.201200054 | DOI Listing |
ACS Macro Lett
January 2025
Department of Physics, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, United States.
We investigate the impact of poly adenine (poly-A) sequences on the type and stability of liquid crystalline (LC) phases formed by concentrated solutions of gapped DNA (two duplex arms bridged by a flexible single strand) using synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering and polarizing optical microscopy. While samples with mixed sequence form layered (smectic) phases, poly-A samples demonstrate a columnar phase at lower temperatures (5-35 °C), not previously observed in GDNA samples, and a smectic-B phase of exceptional stability at higher temperatures (35-65 °C). We present a model that connects the formation of these LC phases with the unique characteristics of poly-A sequences, which manifest in various biological contexts, including DNA condensation and nucleosome formation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoft Matter
January 2025
Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
The current intense study of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals was initiated by the observation of the same ferroelectric nematic phase in two independently discovered organic, rod-shaped, mesogenic compounds, RM734 and DIO. We recently reported that the compound RM734 also exhibits a monotropic, low-temperature, apolar phase having reentrant isotropic symmetry (the I phase), the formation of which is facilitated to a remarkable degree by doping with small (below 1%) amounts of the ionic liquid BMIM-PF. Here we report similar phenomenology in DIO, showing that this reentrant isotropic behavior is not only a property of RM734 but is rather a more general, material-independent feature of ferroelectric nematic mesogens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev Lett
December 2024
Departament de Física, Campus Nord B4-B5, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, E-08034 Barcelona, Spain.
We predict that ultracold bosonic dipolar gases, confined within a multilayer geometry, may undergo self-assembling processes, leading to the formation of chain gases and solids. These dipolar chains, with dipoles aligned across different layers, emerge at low densities and resemble phases observed in liquid crystals, such as nematic and smectic phases. We calculate the phase diagram using quantum Monte Carlo methods, introducing a newly devised trial wave function designed for describing the chain gas, where dipoles from different layers form chains without in-plane long-range order.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAngew Chem Int Ed Engl
December 2024
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
The creation of anisotropic nanoparticles (NPs) by polymerization and/or self-assembly (SA) has significantly promoted the applications of polymer nanomaterials in many fields. However, polymer nanorods are not easily accessible via conventional polymerization or SA. Here we report a one-step route to synthesize single-domain smectic liquid crystalline (LC) nanorods utilizing oriented attachment (OA) that was usually found in the synthesis of inorganic NPs, synchronized with polymerization and SA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev E
November 2024
William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore 21218, USA.
Composite materials made of polymers and liquid crystals have been widely employed in smart windows, optical filters, and bistable displays. However, it is often difficult to decipher the role of the polymer network architecture on the alignment and the texture of liquid crystals. In this study, we use a simple model system where a small amount of polymerizable liquid crystalline monomer is mixed in a liquid crystal that exhibits both a smectic phase and a cholesteric phase with a large helical pitch.
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