In soft matter systems, there is a wealth of topological phenomena, such as singular disclination lines and nonsingular defects of skyrmions and hopfions. In a liquid crystal (LC), the topological nature of disclination lines and colloids induces chiral colloidal entanglements. How the chirality of the entanglements is deterministically created and how the chirality conversion is actuated in the disclinations with Möbius strip topology have never been explored. Here, we create colloidal entanglements with designed chirality in the nematic disclination loops with Möbius topology. An irreversible process of chirality change is revealed if we move the colloidal entanglement along the loops. A nonreciprocal chirality conversion in the dynamical colloidal entanglements is demonstrated, which is induced by the interplay between topological profiles and the geometrical curvature of the disclination loop. Colloidal entanglements in opposite chirality are templated in arbitrary shapes of disclination lines. This work opens opportunities to design smart colloidal materials.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads7281 | DOI Listing |
Nat Commun
March 2025
State Key Lab of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering and Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Physical hydrogels, three-dimensional polymer networks with reversible cross-linking, have been widely used in many developments throughout the history of mankind. However, physical hydrogels face significant challenges in applications due to wound rupture and low elasticity. Some self-heal wounds with strong ionic bond throughout the network but struggle to immediately recover during cyclic operation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Mater
March 2025
Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
Many biological tissues are mechanically strong and stiff but can still heal from damage. By contrast, synthetic hydrogels have not shown comparable combinations of properties, as current stiffening approaches inevitably suppress the required chain/bond dynamics for self-healing. Here we show a stiff and self-healing hydrogel with a modulus of 50 MPa and tensile strength up to 4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFood Chem
February 2025
Academy of Agricultural Planning and Engineering, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing 100125, China. Electronic address:
This study explores the possibility of exogenous lysine combined with nonenzymatic glycation to prepare an aqueous colloidal dispersion of meat protein. The results indicate that compared to the MPs aqueous solution, the aqueous colloidal dispersion possesses outstanding dispersion and stability. Results from structural analysis and microscopic observation show that l-lysine can promote the swelling and dissociation of MPs and form an entanglement network due to intermolecular bonding.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall
March 2025
INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Campus D2 2, 66123, Saarbrücken, Germany.
This report is about the chemical formation of gels from ultrathin gold nanowires (AuNWs) and the gels' properties. An excess of triphenylphosphine (PPh) initiated the gelation of AuNWs with core diameters below 2 nm and an oleylamine (OAm) ligand shell dispersed in cyclohexane. The ligand exchange of OAm by PPh changes the AuNW-solvent interactions and leads to phase separation of the solvent to form a macroscopic gel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNanoscale
February 2025
State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, P. R. China.
Looped polymer brushes lacking chain terminals exhibited unique topological structures and associated properties. Looped polymer brushes in solution have been extensively studied, although the topology and corresponding performances of the thermal-responsive polymer upon grafting onto nanoparticle surfaces have been hardly reported. In this work, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were modified using poly(-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAAm) terminated with one thiol and two thiol groups to prepare linear and looped PNIPAAm brush-coated AuNPs, respectively.
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