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Controlling Gaussian and mean curvatures at microscale by sublimation and condensation of smectic liquid crystals.

ABSTRACT: Soft materials with layered structure such as membranes, block copolymers and smectics exhibit intriguing morphologies with nontrivial curvatures. Here, we report restructuring the Gaussian and mean curvatures of smectic A films with free surface in the process of sintering, that is, reshaping at elevated temperatures. The pattern of alternating patches of negative, zero and positive mean curvature of the air-smectic interface has a profound effect on the rate of sublimation. As a result of sublimation, condensation and restructuring, initially equilibrium smectic films with negative and zero Gaussian curvature are transformed into structures with pronounced positive Gaussian curvature of layers packing, which are rare in the samples obtained by cooling from the isotropic melt. The observed relationship between the curvatures, bulk elastic behaviour and interfacial geometries in sintering of smectic liquid crystals might pave the way for new approaches to control soft morphologies at micron and submicron scales.

SUBMITTER: Kim DS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4725769 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Controlling Gaussian and mean curvatures at microscale by sublimation and condensation of smectic liquid crystals.

Kim Dae Seok DS Cha Yun Jeong YJ Kim Mun Ho MH Lavrentovich Oleg D OD Yoon Dong Ki DK

Nature communications 20160104

Soft materials with layered structure such as membranes, block copolymers and smectics exhibit intriguing morphologies with nontrivial curvatures. Here, we report restructuring the Gaussian and mean curvatures of smectic A films with free surface in the process of sintering, that is, reshaping at elevated temperatures. The pattern of alternating patches of negative, zero and positive mean curvature of the air-smectic interface has a profound effect on the rate of sublimation. As a result of subl ...[more]

PMID: 26725975

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Project description:The rheology of colloidal suspensions is of utmost importance in a wide variety of interdisciplinary applications in formulation technology, determining equally interesting questions in fundamental science. This is especially intriguing when colloids exhibit a degree of long-range positional or orientational ordering, as in liquid crystals (LCs) of elongated particles. Along with standard methods, microrheology (MR) has emerged in recent years as a tool to assess the mechanical properties of materials at the microscopic level. In particular, by active MR one can infer the viscoelastic response of a soft material from the dynamics of a tracer particle being dragged through it by external forces. Although considerable efforts have been made to study the diffusion of guest particles in LCs, little is known about the combined effect of tracer size and directionality of the dragging force on the system's viscoelastic response. By dynamic Monte Carlo simulations, we apply active MR to investigate the viscoelasticity of self-assembling smectic (Sm) LCs consisting of rodlike particles. In particular, we track the motion of a spherical tracer whose size is varied within a range of values matching the system's characteristic length scales and being dragged by constant forces that are parallel, perpendicular, or at 45° to the nematic director. Our results reveal a uniform value of the effective friction coefficient as probed by the tracer at small and large forces, whereas a nonlinear, force-thinning regime is observed at intermediate forces. However, at relatively weak forces the effective friction is strongly determined by correlations between the tracer size and the structure of the host fluid. Moreover, we also show that external forces forming an angle with the nematic director provide additional details that cannot be simply inferred from the mere analysis of parallel and perpendicular forces. Our results highlight the fundamental interplay between tracer size and force direction in assessing the MR of Sm LC fluids.

Dataset Information

Controlling Gaussian and mean curvatures at microscale by sublimation and condensation of smectic liquid crystals.

Publications

Controlling Gaussian and mean curvatures at microscale by sublimation and condensation of smectic liquid crystals.

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