The formation of a large-area ordered structure by organic molecular soft building blocks is one of the most exciting interdisciplinary research areas in current materials science and nanotechnology. So far, several distinct organic building blocks--including colloids, block copolymers and surfactants--have been examined as potential materials for the creation of lithographic templates. Here, we report that perfect ordered arrays of toric focal conic domains (TFCDs) covering large areas can be formed by semi-fluorinated smectic liquid crystals. Combined with controlled geometry, that is, a microchannel, our smectic liquid-crystal system exhibits a high density of TFCDs that are arranged with remarkably high regularity. Direct visualization of the internal structure of the TFCDs clearly verified that the smectic layers were aligned normal to the side walls and parallel to the top surface, and merge with the circular profile on the bottom wall surface. Moreover, we demonstrate a new concept: smectic liquid-crystal lithography. Grown in microchannels from a mixture of liquid-crystal molecules and fluorescent particles, TFCDs of the smectic liquid crystals acted as a template, trapping particles in an ordered array. Our findings pose new theoretical challenges and potentially enable lithographic applications based on smectic liquid-crystalline materials.

The boundaries between domains in single-layer graphene strongly influence its electronic properties. However, existing approaches for domain visualization, which are based on microscopy and spectroscopy, are only effective for domains that are less than a few micrometres in size. Here, we report a simple method for the visualization of arbitrarily large graphene domains by imaging the birefringence of a graphene surface covered with nematic liquid crystals. The method relies on a correspondence between the orientation of the liquid crystals and that of the underlying graphene, which we use to determine the boundaries of macroscopic domains.

crystal (LC) fi lm containing an ordered, periodic array of smectic LC defects. [ 9,10 ] Unlike previously reported self-assembling materials, which have been geared toward defect-free systems of the ordered structures, these approaches rely on the order of artifi cially made defects as building blocks to create templates. The proposed approaches based on LC defects have signifi cant advantages over existing methods to micro/nanopatterning applications, including easy fabrication, the creation of long-range surface ordering, very rapid formation of periodic arrays, and the ability to generate various featured sizes ranging from the micrometer to the sub-micrometer scale. Furthermore, the ordered array of LC defects occurs rapidly due to reversible and non-covalent interactions between the LC molecules and can easily be generated by controlling surface anchoring, which is a very simple and costeffective mechanism that is well suited to mass production. In addition, this process should not be limited to specifi c rodlike LC materials and it should be applicable to other smectic LC systems forming similar defect structures. Accordingly, such defect orders of LC materials can be very strong candidates for the periodic templates, compared to other soft-building blocks such as block copolymers, colloids, and surfactants.To introduce this new type of building block based on LC defect order, fi rstly we will describe various types of LC phases and their versatile defect structures. In particular, focal conic domains (FCDs), which are typical defect structures of the smectic phase, will be demonstrated in Section 2, since FCDs were fi rstly used to create defect orders. Next, we deal with defect arrays from three different FCDs including toric FCD (TFCD), parabolic FCD (PFCD), and cylindrical oily streak (OS). The TFCDs, which are generated in an antagonistic surface anchoring condition, will be described in detail. Then, the mechanism of TFCD formation is described in terms of surface anchoring, direct internal structure observation, and energetics in Section 3. In Section 4, the template-assisted self-assembling approaches, including some manipulating methods for the domain size, arrangement, and selective patterning of TFCDs, are demonstrated. Finally, we discuss their applications in soft lithographic templates, superhydrophobic surfaces, microlens arrays, organic photomasks, and trapping templates for colloidal particles based on large-area TFCD-array patterning in Section 5.As the fi eld of information displays is maturing, LC materials research is undergoing a modern-day renaissance. Devices Smectic Liquid Crystal Defects for Self-Assembling of Building Blocks and Their Lithographic ApplicationsRecently, it has been reported that liquid crystal (LC) defects can be used to create highly periodic templates by controlling the surface anchoring and the elastic properties of LC molecules. The self-assembled defect ordering of the LC materials takes advantage of the ability to achieve fast stabilization of molecular orde...