Living liquid crystals.

Collective motion of self-propelled organisms or synthetic particles, often termed "active fluid," has attracted enormous attention in the broad scientific community because of its fundamentally nonequilibrium nature. Energy input and interactions among the moving units and the medium lead to complex dynamics. Here, we introduce a class of active matter--living liquid crystals (LLCs)--that combines living swimming bacteria with a lyotropic liquid crystal.

Dynamic arrest of nematic liquid-crystal colloid networks.

We report interesting self-assembly structures of nematic liquid-crystal colloid (NLCC) networks, which are arrested during cooling from the isotropic temperature to room temperature. The NLCC is composed of sterically stabilized colloidal particles and a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) with nematic-isotropic transition temperature (T_{NI}) that is much higher than those of previously studied 4-Cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl and N-(4-Methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline. We find that the structure of NLCCs depends on T(NI), cooling rates, and boundary conditions, varying from cellular network to hierarchical fern structures in different length scales.

Nematic twist-bend phase with nanoscale modulation of molecular orientation.

A state of matter in which molecules show a long-range orientational order and no positional order is called a nematic liquid crystal. The best known and most widely used (for example, in modern displays) is the uniaxial nematic, with the rod-like molecules aligned along a single axis, called the director. When the molecules are chiral, the director twists in space, drawing a right-angle helicoid and remaining perpendicular to the helix axis; the structure is called a chiral nematic.

Photodynamic chiral molecular switches with thermal stability: from reflection wavelength tuning to handedness inversion of self-organized helical superstructures.

A good turn: Three compounds that bear two axially chiral bridged binaphthyl units were developed as photodynamic chiral dopants for nematic liquid crystals. For compounds with suitable bridge lengths, a change in the dihedral angle induced a switch of the binaphthyl units from the cisoid to the transoid form upon UV irradiation, which led to an inversion of the handedness of the helices.

Morphogenesis of defects and tactoids during isotropic-nematic phase transition in self-assembled lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals.

We explore the structure of nuclei and topological defects in the first-order phase transition between the nematic (N) and isotropic (I) phases in lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs). The LCLCs are formed by self-assembled molecular aggregates of various lengths and show a broad biphasic region. The defects emerge as a result of two mechanisms: (1) surface-anisotropy that endows each N nucleus ('tactoid') with topological defects thanks to preferential (tangential) orientation of the director at the closed I-N interface, and (2) Kibble mechanism with defects forming when differently oriented N tactoids merge with each other.

Free-energy power expansion for orientationally ordered phases: energy and entropy.

We propose an approach to the description of orientational phase transitions that utilizes the specific features of orientational energy and entropy. The approach is applied to building a model for nematic phases in materials with nonpolar parallelepiped-type molecules with symmetry D(2h). The model operates with complex order parameters, generalizes the Landau-de Gennes theory, and predicts the existence of a biaxial nematic phase for the fourth-order expansion of free energy.

Liquid-crystal-enabled electrophoresis of spheres in a nematic medium with negative dielectric anisotropy.

We describe electrophoresis of spherical dielectric particles in a uniformly aligned nematic medium with a negative dielectric anisotropy. A spherical particle that orients the liquid crystal (LC) perpendicularly to its surface moves under the application of a uniform direct current or alternating current electric field. The electric field causes no distortions of the LC director far away from the sphere.

Molecular reorientation of a nematic liquid crystal by thermal expansion.

A unique feature of nematic liquid crystals is orientational order of molecules that can be controlled by electromagnetic fields, surface modifications and pressure gradients. Here we demonstrate a new effect in which the orientation of nematic liquid crystal molecules is altered by thermal expansion. Thermal expansion (or contraction) causes the nematic liquid crystal to flow; the flow imposes a realigning torque on the nematic liquid crystal molecules and the optic axis.

Elasticity of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals probed by director reorientation in a magnetic field.

Using a magnetic Frederiks transition technique, we measure the temperature and concentration dependences of splay K1, twist K2, and bend K3 elastic constants for the lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal sunset yellow formed through noncovalent reversible aggregation of organic molecules in water. K1 and K3 are comparable to each other and are an order of magnitude higher than K2. At higher concentrations and lower temperatures, K1 and the ratios K1/K3 and K1/K2 increase, which is attributed to elongation of self-assembled lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal aggregates, a feature not found in conventional thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals formed by covalently bound units of a fixed length.

Condensation of self-assembled lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal sunset yellow in aqueous solutions crowded with polyethylene glycol and doped with salt.

We use optical and fluorescence microscopy, densitometry, cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM), spectroscopy, and synchrotron X-ray scattering to study the phase behavior of the reversible self-assembled chromonic aggregates of an anionic dye Sunset Yellow (SSY) in aqueous solutions crowded with an electrically neutral polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG) and doped with the salt NaCl. PEG causes the isotropic SSY solutions to condense into a liquid-crystalline region with a high concentration of SSY aggregates, coexisting with a PEG-rich isotropic (I) region. PEG added to the homogeneous nematic (N) phase causes separation into the coexisting N and I domains; the SSY concentration in the N domains is higher than the original concentration of PEG-free N phase.

Surface alignment, anchoring transitions, optical properties, and topological defects in the nematic phase of thermotropic bent-core liquid crystal A131.

We study optical, structural, and surface anchoring properties of thermotropic nematic bent-core material A131. The focus is on the features associated with orientational order as the material has been reported to exhibit not only the usual uniaxial nematic but also the biaxial nematic phase. We demonstrate that A131 experiences a surface anchoring transition from a perpendicular to tilted alignment when the temperature decreases.

Light-driven reversible handedness inversion in self-organized helical superstructures.

We report here a fast-photon-mode reversible handedness inversion of a self-organized helical superstructure (i.e., a cholesteric liquid crystal phase) using photoisomerizable chiral cyclic dopants.

Nonlinear electrophoresis of dielectric and metal spheres in a nematic liquid crystal.

Electrophoresis is a motion of charged dispersed particles relative to a fluid in a uniform electric field. The effect is widely used to separate macromolecules, to assemble colloidal structures and to transport particles in nano- and microfluidic devices and displays. Typically, the fluid is isotropic (for example, water) and the electrophoretic velocity is linearly proportional to the electric field.

Large flow birefringence of nematogenic bent-core liquid crystals.

We have found that bent-core liquid crystalline materials show exceptionally large intrinsic flow birefringence in their isotropic liquid phase. This effect is more than 100 times larger than typical values measured for low molecular weight liquid crystals. The specific flow birefringence (i.

Electrically switched color with polymer-stabilized blue-phase liquid crystals.

We report an electrical-field switched color device using a polymer-stabilized blue-phase (PSBP) liquid crystal in which the Bragg-reflected color of the blue phase (BP) can be switched to reflect a second color. The phase-separated three-dimensional polymer network transcribes the cubic structure of a BP liquid crystal and restrains the deformation of cubic lattice by the external electric field. The new wide-range electric-field switched colors with PSBP may be an important step toward ecofriendly color reflective displays.

Self-assembly of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal Sunset Yellow and effects of ionic additives.

Lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) are formed by molecules with ionic groups at the periphery that associate into stacks through noncovalent self-assembly while in water. The very existence of the nematic (N) phase in the typical LCLC, the dye Sunset Yellow (SSY) is a puzzle, as the correlation length associated with the stacking, as measured in the X-ray experiments, is too short to explain the orientational order by the Onsager model. We propose that the aggregates can be more complex than simple rods and contain "stacking faults" such as junctions with a shift of neighboring molecules, 3-fold junctions, etc.

Chirality of lipids makes fluid lamellar phases piezoelectric.

The role of chirality in membrane-forming lipids is not well appreciated at present. Here we demonstrate that the chirality of phospholipids makes fluid lipid bilayers piezoelectric. Thus, chiral lipids would play a central role in the functioning of cell membranes as active mechanotransducers.

Controllable side-by-side and end-to-end assembly of Au nanorods by lyotropic chromonic materials.

We present a simple and universal technique for assembling gold nanorods (NRs) using self-assembled stacks of lyotropic chromonic materials, without covalent bonding between NRs and the linking agent. The anisotropic electrostatic interaction between the chromonic stacks and NRs allows one to achieve either side-by-side or end-to-end assembly, depending on the surface charge of NRs. The assembled superstructures are stable within an extended temperature range; the degree of NR aggregation can be controlled by a number of factors influencing the self-assembly of chromonic materials, such as the concentration and pH of the solution.

Carbon nanotube doped liquid crystal OCB cells: physical and electro-optical properties.

We report single-wall carbon nanotube (CNT) doped liquid crystal materials which show significant improvement in the response time for optical controlled birefringence (OCB) cells. Four different types of liquid crystals (LCs) were chosen to mix with CNTs and they demonstrated similar results in improving the response time. Experimental results show that the anchoring energy at alignment layers has been changed by CNT doping.

Levitation, lift, and bidirectional motion of colloidal particles in an electrically driven nematic liquid crystal.

We study electric-field-induced dynamics of colloids in a nematic cell, experimentally and by computer simulations. Solid particles in the nematic bulk create director distortions of dipolar type. Elastic repulsion from the walls keeps the particles in the middle of cell.

Odd-even effects in bent-core compounds containing terminal n-alkyl carboxylate groups.

A homologous series of eleven five-ring symmetrical bent-core compounds containing terminal -alkyl carboxylate groups were synthesized, characterized and their dielectric and electro-optical properties have been investigated. The lower homologues ( = 6-11) of the series show B structures with an interesting odd-even effect concerning their local director tilt and polar arrangements. This odd-even effect probably is due to steric (entropic) reasons, which are not suppressed by the relatively low polar interaction.