Nematic director-induced switching of assemblies of hexagonally packed gold nanorods.

Self-assembled disc-shaped clusters of hexagonally packed, thiol-functionalized gold nanorods are prepared and dispersed in thermotropic nematic liquid crystals. The resultant hybrid complex fluids exhibit colloidal anisotropy with very high orientational order and are characterized by SAXS as shown in the figure. Precise, reconfigurable control of the cluster orientation at very low electric field strengths (0.18 V μm(-1) ) is achieved.