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Liquid crystal phase transitions in suspensions of polydisperse plate-like particles

Nature volume 406, pages 868–871 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

Colloidal suspensions that form periodic self-assembling structures on sub-micrometre scales are of potential technological interest; for example, three-dimensional arrangements of spheres in colloidal crystals1 might serve as photonic materials2, intended to manipulate light. Colloidal particles with non-spherical shapes (such as rods and plates) are of particular interest because of their ability to form liquid crystals. Nematic liquid crystals possess orientational order; smectic and columnar liquid crystals additionally exhibit positional order (in one or two dimensions respectively). However, such positional ordering3,4 may be inhibited in polydisperse colloidal suspensions. Here we describe a suspension of plate-like colloids that shows isotropic, nematic and columnar phases on increasing the particle concentration. We find that the columnar two-dimensional crystal persists for a polydispersity of up to 25%, with a cross-over to smectic-like ordering at very high particle concentrations. Our results imply that liquid crystalline order in synthetic mesoscopic materials may be easier to achieve than previously thought.

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Figure 1: Structure of the three main classes of liquid crystals.
Figure 2: Transmission electron microscopy images.
Figure 3: Tubes containing suspensions at varying concentrations.
Figure 4: Phase diagram of the suspensions.
Figure 5: Small angle X-ray scattering patterns for samples varying in polydispersity and volume fraction.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. R. Rennie for discussions concerning the columnar phase, I. Dolbnya and W. Bras for technical support at DUBBLE, and D. Frenkel for a critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Research (NWO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Van't Hoff Laboratory for Physical and Colloid Chemistry, Debye Institute, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, Utrecht, 3584 CH, The Netherlands

    Felix M. van der Kooij, Katerina Kassapidou & Henk N. W. Lekkerkerker

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  1. Felix M. van der Kooij
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  3. Henk N. W. Lekkerkerker
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Correspondence to Henk N. W. Lekkerkerker.

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van der Kooij, F., Kassapidou, K. & Lekkerkerker, H. Liquid crystal phase transitions in suspensions of polydisperse plate-like particles. Nature 406, 868–871 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35022535

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