Cargando…

Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase

Rational design of thermotropic liquid crystal (LC)-based sensors utilizing different mesophases holds great promise to open up novel detection modalities for various chemical and biological applications. In this context, we present a dissipative particle dynamics study to explore the unique anchori...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chen, Shiwei, Zhang, Jinliang, Liu, Huilong, Qiu, Tongyue, Tang, Haoxiang, Zhang, Zunmin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9658472/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36364262
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules27217433
_version_ 1784829959531921408
author Chen, Shiwei
Zhang, Jinliang
Liu, Huilong
Qiu, Tongyue
Tang, Haoxiang
Zhang, Zunmin
author_facet Chen, Shiwei
Zhang, Jinliang
Liu, Huilong
Qiu, Tongyue
Tang, Haoxiang
Zhang, Zunmin
author_sort Chen, Shiwei
collection PubMed
description Rational design of thermotropic liquid crystal (LC)-based sensors utilizing different mesophases holds great promise to open up novel detection modalities for various chemical and biological applications. In this context, we present a dissipative particle dynamics study to explore the unique anchoring behavior of nematic and smectic LCs at amphiphile-laden aqueous-LC interface. By increasing the surface coverage of amphiphiles, two distinct anchoring sequences, a continuous planar-tilted-homeotropic transition and a discontinuous planar-to-homeotropic transition, can be observed for the nematic and smectic LCs, respectively. More importantly, the latter occurs at a much lower surface coverage of amphiphiles, demonstrating an outstanding sensitivity for the smectic-based sensors. The dynamics of reorientation further reveals that the formation of homeotropic smectic anchoring is mainly governed by the synchronous growth of smectic layers through the LCs, which is significantly different from the mechanism of interface-to-bulk ordering propagation in nematic anchoring. Furthermore, the smectic LCs have also been proven to possess a potential selectivity in response to a subtle change in the chain rigidity of amphiphiles. These simulation findings are promising and would be valuable for the development of novel smectic-based sensors.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9658472
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-96584722022-11-15 Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase Chen, Shiwei Zhang, Jinliang Liu, Huilong Qiu, Tongyue Tang, Haoxiang Zhang, Zunmin Molecules Article Rational design of thermotropic liquid crystal (LC)-based sensors utilizing different mesophases holds great promise to open up novel detection modalities for various chemical and biological applications. In this context, we present a dissipative particle dynamics study to explore the unique anchoring behavior of nematic and smectic LCs at amphiphile-laden aqueous-LC interface. By increasing the surface coverage of amphiphiles, two distinct anchoring sequences, a continuous planar-tilted-homeotropic transition and a discontinuous planar-to-homeotropic transition, can be observed for the nematic and smectic LCs, respectively. More importantly, the latter occurs at a much lower surface coverage of amphiphiles, demonstrating an outstanding sensitivity for the smectic-based sensors. The dynamics of reorientation further reveals that the formation of homeotropic smectic anchoring is mainly governed by the synchronous growth of smectic layers through the LCs, which is significantly different from the mechanism of interface-to-bulk ordering propagation in nematic anchoring. Furthermore, the smectic LCs have also been proven to possess a potential selectivity in response to a subtle change in the chain rigidity of amphiphiles. These simulation findings are promising and would be valuable for the development of novel smectic-based sensors. MDPI 2022-11-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9658472/ /pubmed/36364262 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules27217433 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Chen, Shiwei
Zhang, Jinliang
Liu, Huilong
Qiu, Tongyue
Tang, Haoxiang
Zhang, Zunmin
Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
title Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
title_full Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
title_fullStr Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
title_full_unstemmed Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
title_short Dissipative Particle Dynamics Simulation of the Sensitive Anchoring Behavior of Smectic Liquid Crystals at Aqueous Phase
title_sort dissipative particle dynamics simulation of the sensitive anchoring behavior of smectic liquid crystals at aqueous phase
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9658472/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36364262
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules27217433
work_keys_str_mv AT chenshiwei dissipativeparticledynamicssimulationofthesensitiveanchoringbehaviorofsmecticliquidcrystalsataqueousphase
AT zhangjinliang dissipativeparticledynamicssimulationofthesensitiveanchoringbehaviorofsmecticliquidcrystalsataqueousphase
AT liuhuilong dissipativeparticledynamicssimulationofthesensitiveanchoringbehaviorofsmecticliquidcrystalsataqueousphase
AT qiutongyue dissipativeparticledynamicssimulationofthesensitiveanchoringbehaviorofsmecticliquidcrystalsataqueousphase
AT tanghaoxiang dissipativeparticledynamicssimulationofthesensitiveanchoringbehaviorofsmecticliquidcrystalsataqueousphase
AT zhangzunmin dissipativeparticledynamicssimulationofthesensitiveanchoringbehaviorofsmecticliquidcrystalsataqueousphase