the structures shown in Figure 3. The corresponding data are presented in Figure S6 and Movie S3, Supporting Information. Nevertheless, with the structure shown in Figure 5, we succeeded in 4D printing a structure with a complex distribution of the director orientation leading to a thermally-induced mechanical buckling instability and hence to large-amplitude actuation for a minimal temperature swing.
Nanoporous materials relying on supramolecular liquid
crystals
(LCs) are excellent candidates for size- and charge-selective membranes.
However, whether they can be manufactured using printing technologies
remained unexplored so far. In this work, we develop a new approach
for the fabrication of ordered nanoporous microstructures based on
supramolecular LCs using two-photon laser printing. In particular,
we employ photo-cross-linkable hydrogen-bonded complexes, that self-assemble
into columnar hexagonal (Colh) mesophases, as the base
of our printable photoresist. The presence of photopolymerizable groups
in the periphery of the molecules enables the printability using a
laser. We demonstrate the conservation of the Colh arrangement
and of the adsorptive properties of the materials after laser microprinting,
which highlights the potential of the approach for the fabrication
of functional nanoporous structures with a defined geometry. This
first example of printable Colh LC should open new opportunities
for the fabrication of functional porous microdevices with potential
application in catalysis, filtration, separation, or molecular recognition.
Additive manufacturing (AM) emerged, in last decades, as a promising manufacturing technique for the low-cost fabrication of personalised pieces. Recently, this technology became more and more utilised, both in all-day...
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