Microfabrication of complex double emulsion droplets with controlled substructures, which resemble biological cells, is an important but a highly challenging subject. Here, a new approach is proposed based on laser‐induced injection of water nanodroplets into a liquid crystal (LC) drop. In contrast to the conventional top‐down microfluidic fabrication, this method employs a series of bottom‐up strategies such as nanodroplet injection, spontaneous and assisted coalescence, elastically driven actuation, and self‐assembly. Each step is controlled precisely by adjusting the laser beam, interfacial tension, and its gradients, surface anchoring, and elasticity of the LC. Whispering gallery mode illumination is used to monitor the injection of droplets. A broad spectrum of double emulsions with a predesigned hierarchical architecture is fabricated and reconfigured by temperature, laser‐induced coalescence, and injection. The proposed bottom‐up method to produce customized microemulsions that are responsive to environmental cues can be used in the development of drug delivery systems, biosensors, and functional soft matter microstructures.
A range of polymerisable liquid crystals mixtures have been developed (so called, Reactive Mesogen) that are ideally suited for the fabrication of patterned retarder films. Such films, made using a combination of Merck Reactive Mesogen Mixtures coated on a plastic substrate containing a photoalignment layer, are commercially employed to produce 3D displays. Different methods of patterning Reactive Mesogen Mixtures are discussed and the merits of each considered. Although the first commercial products use normal dispersion Reactive Mesogen Materials, the advantages of using the next generation of materials, which have improved wavelength dispersion, are introduced with a focus on their use in 3D patterned retarder films.
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