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Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids

Nematic liquid crystals are anisotropic fluids that self-assemble into vector fields, which are governed by geometrical and topological laws. Consequently, particulate or droplet inclusions self-assemble in nematic domains through a balance of topological defects. Here, we use double emulsions of wa...

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Autores principales: Solodkov, Nikita V., Shim, Jung-uk, Jones, J. Cliff
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331632/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30643151
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08210-w
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author Solodkov, Nikita V.
Shim, Jung-uk
Jones, J. Cliff
author_facet Solodkov, Nikita V.
Shim, Jung-uk
Jones, J. Cliff
author_sort Solodkov, Nikita V.
collection PubMed
description Nematic liquid crystals are anisotropic fluids that self-assemble into vector fields, which are governed by geometrical and topological laws. Consequently, particulate or droplet inclusions self-assemble in nematic domains through a balance of topological defects. Here, we use double emulsions of water droplets inside radial nematic liquid crystal droplets to form various structures, ranging from linear chains to three-dimensional fractal structures. The system is modeled as a formation of satellite droplets, distributed around a larger, central core droplet and we extend the problem to explain the formation of fractal structures. We show that a distribution of droplet sizes plays a key role in determining the symmetry properties of the resulting geometric structures. The results are relevant to a variety of inclusions, ranging from colloids suspensions to multi-emulsion systems. Such systems have potential applications for novel switchable photonic structures as well as providing wider insights into the packing of self-assembled structures.
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spelling pubmed-63316322019-01-16 Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids Solodkov, Nikita V. Shim, Jung-uk Jones, J. Cliff Nat Commun Article Nematic liquid crystals are anisotropic fluids that self-assemble into vector fields, which are governed by geometrical and topological laws. Consequently, particulate or droplet inclusions self-assemble in nematic domains through a balance of topological defects. Here, we use double emulsions of water droplets inside radial nematic liquid crystal droplets to form various structures, ranging from linear chains to three-dimensional fractal structures. The system is modeled as a formation of satellite droplets, distributed around a larger, central core droplet and we extend the problem to explain the formation of fractal structures. We show that a distribution of droplet sizes plays a key role in determining the symmetry properties of the resulting geometric structures. The results are relevant to a variety of inclusions, ranging from colloids suspensions to multi-emulsion systems. Such systems have potential applications for novel switchable photonic structures as well as providing wider insights into the packing of self-assembled structures. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC6331632/ /pubmed/30643151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08210-w Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Solodkov, Nikita V.
Shim, Jung-uk
Jones, J. Cliff
Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
title Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
title_full Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
title_fullStr Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
title_full_unstemmed Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
title_short Self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
title_sort self-assembly of fractal liquid crystal colloids
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331632/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30643151
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08210-w
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