Liquid crystals articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Creating an enhanced-security-level label that carries entirely distinct information in different optical states has proven challenging. Here, the authors design geminate labels by programming fluorescent cholesteric liquid crystal microdroplets to encrypt fluorescent security information behind colorful reflective patterns.

    • Lang Qin
    • , Xiaojun Liu
    •  & Yanlei Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tactoids are liquid crystal droplets with nearly vanishing interfacial tension. Almohammadi et al. show using a microfluidic focusing device how to manipulate them gently enough to facilitate the study of amyloid liquid crystal phase transitions subject to non-equilibirum forcing and shape changes.

    • Hamed Almohammadi
    • , Massimo Bagnani
    •  & Raffaele Mezzenga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Relaxation of liquid crystals is crucial in a broad area, e.g. biomimicry and stimuli-responsive material design. Here Khadem et al explore distinct relaxations, reveal the corresponding physics and propose a novel method for estimating viscoelastic properties without applying external fields.

    • Sayyed Ahmad Khadem
    • , Massimo Bagnani
    •  & Alejandro D. Rey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electric field induced convective instabilities in liquid crystal slabs can assume a localized shape. The authors show how to generate, manipulate and shepard these dissipative solitary excitations that do not require topological constraints for stabilization.

    • Satoshi Aya
    •  & Fumito Araoka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Defects in liquid crystals (LCs) find application in self-assembly of nanomaterials, optical-vortex generation and in tunable plasmonic metamaterials but methods for flexible and tailored fabrication of defects are scarce. Here, the authors demonstrate fabrication and stabilisation of electrically-tunable defects in an LC device using two-photon polymerisation, revealing interesting electro-optic behaviour.

    • John J. Sandford O’Neill
    • , Patrick S. Salter
    •  & Stephen M. Morris

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For colloidal particles, it remains challenging to predict the forms of order that can emerge in their dense assembled structures. Here, the authors show, by Monte Carlo simulations, that tetratic-ordered phases emerge in a dense two-dimensional system of hard kites that are rotationally asymmetric.

    • Zhanglin Hou
    • , Yiwu Zong
    •  & Kun Zhao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Elasticity-mediated particle interaction in a hosting medium holds promise for material engineering of unusual structures. Yuan et al. show that the gold microparticles can induce elastic multipoles of different symmetries when dispersed in a nematic liquid crystal as building blocks for various crystals.

    • Ye Yuan
    • , Mykola Tasinkevych
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is interesting phenomenon that chiral order can emerge in intrinsically achiral liquid crystals. Here Čopar et al. demonstrate achiral-to-chiral transition of the nematic liquid crystals flow in microfluidic channels and their behaviour, stability, and dependence on geometric and material parameters.

    • Simon Čopar
    • , Žiga Kos
    •  & Uroš Tkalec

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liquid crystals are used for devices with increasingly complex geometries which makes it important to understand the influence of deformation. Xia et al. measure the poorly investigated saddle-splay elastic constant by means of surface patterning and simulation for programming emergent symmetries.

    • Yu Xia
    • , Andrew A. DeBenedictis
    •  & Shu Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Though light-driven self-oscillators offer the possibility of autonomous self-sustained motion, existing oscillators are limited in their range of oscillation modes. Here, the authors report freestyle cantilever-type photoactuators that show versatile oscillation modes.

    • Hao Zeng
    • , Markus Lahikainen
    •  & Arri Priimagi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While flocking and schooling are more often associated with birds and fish, these types of behaviour can also be observed in inanimate systems. Here the authors demonstrate schooling of topological solitons in a liquid crystal system powered by oscillating electric fields.

    • Hayley R. O. Sohn
    • , Changda D. Liu
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-guided robotic soft actuators have attracted intense scientific attention but it remains challenging to modulate the moving directions and shape morphing modes. Here the authors report a stimuli-responsive soft actuator system which is capable of performing multi-directional movement as well as different shape morphing modes.

    • Bo Zuo
    • , Meng Wang
    •  & Hong Yang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Photoisomerization of molecules is used to control the structure of soft matter but the response of molecules during isomerization is difficult to elucidate. Here the authors describe ultrafast formation of higher-orientation of liquid-crystalline azobenzene molecules via linearly polarized UV light using time-resolved electron diffraction.

    • Masaki Hada
    • , Daisuke Yamaguchi
    •  & Takashi Kato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Designing bio-inspired computational features in soft systems without centralized processing remains challenging. Here, the authors propose a passive display based on thermochromic elastomers by leveraging Joule heating of embedded liquid metal wires by changing geometry in response to deformation.

    • Yang Jin
    • , Yiliang Lin
    •  & Michael D. Dickey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stable periodic structures can be difficult to obtain in a liquid crystal compared to a solid due to the energetic instability of the former. Here the authors present a technique to fabricate quasicrystalline structures of graphene oxide liquid crystals which have high stability.

    • Yanqiu Jiang
    • , Fan Guo
    •  & Chao Gao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In a previous work, the authors have demonstrated the formation of localized waves in nematic liquid crystals driven by an electric field. Here they demonstrate the realization of solitary waves of (3+2)D type which can be steered along longitudinal and transverse directions by the electric field.

    • Bing-Xiang Li
    • , Rui-Lin Xiao
    •  & Oleg D. Lavrentovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liquid crystal networks can morph their shape in response to electrical stimulus. Here the authors provide a detailed description of their deformation mechanism and introduce a method to observe the dynamic surface of liquid crystal elastomers. This could help with the development of smart materials.

    • Hanne M. van der Kooij
    • , Slav A. Semerdzhiev
    •  & Joris Sprakel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optically reconfigurable elements are in demand for future applications. The authors report on the use of chirality-invertible cholesteric liquid crystals to actively manipulate geometric phase and create switchable planar optics elements that perform a variety of functions.

    • Peng Chen
    • , Ling-Ling Ma
    •  & Yan-Qing Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When colloidal particles are placed into a liquid crystal host the anisotropic surface interactions produce spatial elastic distortions described as elastic multipoles. Here the authors provide a recipe to construct higher order multipoles, in particular the 16-, 32-, and 64-poles.

    • Bohdan Senyuk
    • , Jure Aplinc
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It was previously shown that chiral structures can be formed from achiral bent-shaped mesogens. Here the authors observe hierarchical chiral structures with coupling of chirality at different levels in a system with achiral constituents.

    • Mirosław Salamończyk
    • , Nataša Vaupotič
    •  & Ewa Gorecka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Double helix structures appear widely in nature, but only rarely in synthetic non-chiral macromolecules. Here the authors describe a double helix in a densely charged aromatic polyamide, which exhibits an axial rigidity persistence length of ~ 1 μm, much higher than that of DNA (~ 50 nm).

    • Ying Wang
    • , Yadong He
    •  & Louis A. Madsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological defects in liquid crystals can drive the assembly of colloidal inclusions. Here the authors place water droplets of different sizes in a larger nematic liquid crystal drop and observe the formation and self-assembly of fractal colloidal structures.

    • Nikita V. Solodkov
    • , Jung-uk Shim
    •  & J. Cliff Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Auxeticity in synthetic materials is realised by geometrical design of porous structures rather than on a molecular level. Here the authors demonstrate auxeticity in a non-porous liquid crystal elastomer overcoming porosity related weakening of the material and opening a pathway to designed molecular auxetic materials.

    • D. Mistry
    • , S. D. Connell
    •  & H. F. Gleeson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological motors which convert energy into mechanical work inspire the fabrication of synthetic motors. Here the authors demonstrate self-assembled colloidal motors which are driven to a range of responses controlled by the feedback between light polarization and deformation of a liquid crystal.

    • Ye Yuan
    • , Ghaneema N. Abuhaimed
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetically induced phase behaviour in a soft matter system is of potential interest for magneto-responsive compounds. Here the authors fabricate a discotic ionic liquid crystalline hybrid material which can be switched from orthorhombic to cubic phase in the absence or presence of a strong magnetic field.

    • Fatin Hajjaj
    • , Takashi Kajitani
    •  & Takanori Fukushima

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rod-shaped bacteria are an example of active matter. Here the authors find that a growing bacterial colony harbours internal cellular flows affecting orientational ordering in its interior and at the boundary. Results suggest this system may belong to a new active matter universality class.

    • D. Dell’Arciprete
    • , M. L. Blow
    •  & W. C. K. Poon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms by which molecular chirality is amplified through space and across length scales is of great interest. Here the authors show how gold nanorods covered in chiral dopants are more efficient in transducing chiral information compared to other gold nanoparticles decorated with chiral ligands.

    • Ahlam Nemati
    • , Sasan Shadpour
    •  & Torsten Hegmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Owing to their lack of a conventional cavity, random lasers typically do not emit a defined beam in a specific direction. Here, the authors combine spatial solitons and collinear pumping to achieve light-confined random lasing with a smooth output profile and a controllable direction of emission.

    • Sreekanth Perumbilavil
    • , Armando Piccardi
    •  & Gaetano Assanto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nematic liquid crystals have a rich energy landscape which can define elastic fields to guide colloidal assembly. Here the authors show controllable trapping of colloidal particles by placing them in a system with wavy walls which are exploited to obtain stable, metastable and unstable equilibria.

    • Yimin Luo
    • , Daniel A. Beller
    •  & Kathleen J. Stebe

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Active matter systems are made up of self-driven components which extract energy from their surroundings to generate mechanical work. Here the authors review the subfield of active nematics and provide a comparison between theoretical findings and the corresponding experimental realisations.

    • Amin Doostmohammadi
    • , Jordi Ignés-Mullol
    •  & Francesc Sagués

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perylene bisimides (PBI) exhibit interesting photophysical and self-assembly properties but detailed understanding of the correlation between packing motif and spectroscopic properties is lacking. Here the authors report on self-assembling of PBIs in liquid crystalline phases to give aggregates with J- and H-type coupling contribution between the chromophores.

    • Stefanie Herbst
    • , Bartolome Soberats
    •  & Frank Würthner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCE) exhibit shape transformation when subjected to various stimuli, but the achievable thickness of LCE films is limited. Here the authors demonstrate arbitrarily thick LCE films that are continuous in composition and maintain the director orientation, prescribed into the material.

    • Tyler Guin
    • , Michael J. Settle
    •  & Timothy J. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding why and how molecules transfer their chirality into helical superstructures, including crystals, remains a challenge. Here, the authors show that topological defects not only promote the growth, but also control the helical morphology of crystals formed by chiral rod-shaped particles.

    • Baeckkyoung Sung
    • , Alexis de la Cotte
    •  & Eric Grelet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymorphism is a property that allows a material to exist in two or more crystal structures. Here the authors observe thermal-induced structural polymorphism in a bent-core liquid crystal compound and show that by choosing the cooling rate, different structures with distinct structural colours are obtained.

    • Lin Li
    • , Mirosław Salamończyk
    •  & Torsten Hegmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liquid crystals comprising inorganic species are far less common than their organic-based counterparts. Here, the authors report a magneto-optically responsive liquid crystal based on nanorods of the biomineral hydroxyapatite, representing a new type of biologically-based, dynamic inorganic material.

    • Masanari Nakayama
    • , Satoshi Kajiyama
    •  & Takashi Kato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liquid crystal elastomers are anisotropic rubbers which can be actuated by an external trigger. Here the authors develop elastomer coatings with pre-patterned molecular orientation that induces deterministic topography changes in response to changes in temperature.

    • Greta Babakhanova
    • , Taras Turiv
    •  & Oleg D. Lavrentovich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Systems that form chiral structures from achiral molecules are not common. Here, the authors synthesise a compound consisting of asymmetric and achiral bent-shaped mesogens, which exhibit a variety of liquid crystal phases including one in which chiral structures form from achiral constituent molecules.

    • Jordan P. Abberley
    • , Ross Killah
    •  & Damian Pociecha

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Effective haptic interfaces are advantageous for technology that involves human-computer interaction. Here Liu et al. fabricate thin liquid crystal polymer network coatings which can be modulated by applying an alternating electric field; such switchable topography could be applied to haptic interfaces.

    • Danqing Liu
    • , Nicholas B. Tito
    •  & Dirk J. Broer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Buckling and wrinkling are instabilities which involve thin elastic sheets and are well-investigated phenomena at the macroscale. Here Saikia et al. investigate curvature instabilities at the colloidal lengthscale in quasi-2D monolayers of rod-like viruses across the fluid-crystal phase transition.

    • Lachit Saikia
    • , Tanmoy Sarkar
    •  & Prerna Sharma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conventional fabrication approaches for large-size three-dimensional photonic crystals are problematic. By properly controlling the self-assembly processes, the authors report the fabrication of monocrystalline blue phase liquid crystals that exhibit three-dimensional photonic-crystalline properties.

    • Chun-Wei Chen
    • , Chien-Tsung Hou
    •  & Tsung-Hsien Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A skyrmion is a topological object originally introduced to model elementary particles and a baby skyrmion is its two-dimensional counterpart which can be realized as a defect in liquid crystals. Here the authors show that an electric field can drive uniform motion of baby skyrmions in liquid crystals.

    • Paul J. Ackerman
    • , Timothy Boyle
    •  & Ivan I. Smalyukh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Disclination lines are topological defects in molecular orientation widely found in liquid crystals. Here Wang et al. use a surface patterning technique to produce a very stable freestanding 3D array of ½ twist disclinations, which could be exploited in a variety of nanometre scale applications.

    • Mengfei Wang
    • , Yannian Li
    •  & Hiroshi Yokoyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A thin elastic sheet can develop wrinkles which arrange into patterns similar to those characteristic of liquid crystals. Here the authors use this analogy to propose a mapping between the elastic sheet problem and the smectic liquid crystal problem which can enable a better understanding of wrinkling.

    • Hillel Aharoni
    • , Desislava V. Todorova
    •  & Eleni Katifori

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Blue phases are a liquid crystalline state with attractive optical properties but their use in devices can be hindered by their polycrystalline nature. Here the authors create monocrystalline blue phase domains by designing substrates with patterns which are determined by field-theoretic simulations.

    • Jose A. Martínez-González
    • , Xiao Li
    •  & Juan J. de Pablo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cavitation is the formation of vapour bubbles within a liquid and is undesirable in many industrial applications. Here Stiegeret al. show how the anisotropic fluids influence this process in a nematic liquid crystal and find that orientational ordering of molecules can tune the onset of cavitation.

    • Tillmann Stieger
    • , Hakam Agha
    •  & Anupam Sengupta

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