Liquid crystals articles within Nature

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  • Article |

    Dispersion of colloidal disks in a nematic liquid crystal reveals several low-symmetry phases, including monoclinic colloidal nematic order, with interchange between them achieved through variations in temperature, concentration and surface charge.

    • Haridas Mundoor
    • , Jin-Sheng Wu
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Letter |

    Unstructured light controls the elastic monopole moments of nematic liquid-crystal colloidal particles and switches them to quadrupoles, with like-charged monopoles attracting and oppositely charged ones repelling, enabling reconfigurable dynamic self-assembly.

    • Ye Yuan
    • , Qingkun Liu
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Letter |

    Illumination of thin liquid-crystal polymer films that contain azobenzene derivatives with short thermal relaxation times induces a continuous wave motion throughout the films, owing to a feedback loop driven by material self-shadowing.

    • Anne Helene Gelebart
    • , Dirk Jan Mulder
    •  & Dirk J. Broer

  • Letter |

    Chiral nematic liquid crystals are self-organized helical superstructures in which the helices can stand or lie, and lie in either a uniform or a random way; here, the helices are reversibly driven from a standing arrangement to a uniform lying arrangement and then rotated in-plane—solely by light.

    • Zhi-gang Zheng
    • , Yannian Li
    •  & Quan Li

  • Article |

    The idea that magnetic particles suspended in a liquid crystal might spontaneously orient into a ferromagnetic state has hitherto not been confirmed experimentally, but such a state has now been realized using nanometre-sized ferromagnetic platelets in a nematic liquid crystal.

    • Alenka Mertelj
    • , Darja Lisjak
    •  & Martin Čopič

  • Letter |

    Topologically distinct colloidal particles introduced into a nematic liquid crystal align and generate topology-constrained three-dimensional director fields and defects in the liquid crystal fluid that can be manipulated with a variety of methods, opening up a new area of exploration in the field of soft matter.

    • Bohdan Senyuk
    • , Qingkun Liu
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Letter |

    A new class of liquid crystals is reported that undergoes light-induced ordering and order-increasing phase transitions; possible applications include ophthalmic devices, such as variable transmission sunglasses.

    • Tamas Kosa
    • , Ludmila Sukhomlinova
    •  & Timothy J. Bunning

  • Letter |

    Ordering in liquid-crystal applications is usually achieved using surfactants, but here, in modelled nanodroplets of liquid crystals and surfactants, the liquid crystals control the ordering effects, which resemble those seen in block copolymer ordering, such as spots and stripes.

    • J. A. Moreno-Razo
    • , E. J. Sambriski
    •  & J. J. de Pablo

  • News & Views |

    Some biological macromolecules can control their own assembly into elegant hierarchical structures. Synthetic supramolecules are catching up fast, promising new advances for optical and biomedical materials. See Letter p.364

    • Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • News & Views |

    Many naturally occurring substances have a 'handedness' that enables them to interact highly specifically with matter or light. The helical features responsible for this can now be replicated in solid, porous films. See Letter p.422

    • Andreas Stein

  • Letter |

    Electrophoresis is a motion of charged dispersed particles relative to a fluid in a uniform electric field. Here it is described how an anisotropic fluid — a nematic liquid crystal — can lead to motion of both charged and neutral particles, even when they are perfectly symmetrical, in any type of electric field. The phenomenon is caused by a distortion in the orientation of the liquid crystals around the particles. The approach could see applications in, for example, display technologies and colloidal assembly and disassembly.

    • Oleg D. Lavrentovich
    • , Israel Lazo
    •  & Oleg P. Pishnyak

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