Advanced Functional Liquid Crystals

Abstract

Liquid crystals have been intensively studied as functional materials. Recently, integration of various disciplines has led to new directions in the design of functional liquid‐crystalline materials in the fields of energy, water, photonics, actuation, sensing, and biotechnology. Here, recent advances in functional liquid crystals based on polymers, supramolecular complexes, gels, colloids, and inorganic‐based hybrids are reviewed, from design strategies to functionalization of these materials and interfaces. New insights into liquid crystals provided by significant progress in advanced measurements and computational simulations, which enhance new design and functionalization of liquid‐crystalline materials, are also discussed.

Liquid crystal-templated chiral nanomaterials: from chiral plasmonics to circularly polarized luminescence

“…Thanks to their promising photophysical properties, chiral luminescent nanomaterials have attracted significant attention in diverse areas, such as biological science 62 , 3D display 63 , spintronics 64,65 , enantioselective photochemistry 36,66 and information encryption 67,68 . Among the different chiral soft templates, liquidcrystalline soft templates are highly attractive for guiding the self-assembly of nanoscale functional building blocks into high-order chiral nanomaterials due to their inherent long-range ordered molecular assemblies that couple liquid fluidity with crystal ordering from molecular to macroscopic hierarchical levels [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84] . As a matter of fact, chiral liquid-crystalline nanoarchitectures widely exist in many living organisms, such as in certain plant tissues, cuticles of insects and arthropods, including snail shells, beetle cuticles, butterfly wings, among others [85][86][87][88] .…”

Humidity-Induced Self-Assembled Nanostructures via Ion Aggregation in Ionic Linear Polysiloxanes

“…Nanostructure formation in our linear polysiloxanes should be based on the lyotropic liquid crystallinity and ion aggregation. This mechanism differs from typical lyotropic liquid crystals where aggregation occurs via a hydrophobic effect, − a rigid and hydrophobic core with hydrophilic groups at the peripheries via a π-stack effect, ,, steric hindrance effect, or hydrogen-bonding interaction. , …”

“…This mechanism differs from typical lyotropic liquid crystals where aggregation occurs via a hydrophobic effect, 29−31 a rigid and hydrophobic core with hydrophilic groups at the peripheries via a π-stack effect, 26,29,32 steric hindrance effect, 33 or hydrogenbonding interaction. 34,35 ■ EXPERIMENTAL SECTION Chart 1 shows the effect of the degree of neutralization of a linear polysiloxane using the PAmMS n series. The subscript n represents the degree of neutralization.…”

Synthesis and Phase Behavior of (Semifluorinated Alkane)‐Based Side‐Chain Liquid Crystalline Copolymers

“…Liquid crystalline (LC) polymer features great properties of ordered nanostructure, [1,2] efficient response to external stimuli, [3][4][5] and excellent mechanical performance, [6] making it a competitive candidate in preparing functional nanomaterials. Compared with main-chain liquid crystalline polymers DOI: 10.1002/marc.202200266 (MCLCPs), side-chain liquid crystalline polymers (SCLCPs) have significant advantages in terms of chemical structural designability and aggregational structural complexity, which is of great importance in not only fundamental understanding of molecular assembly [7][8][9] but also nanotechnology applications.…”