Photo‐Actuated Chiral Smectic Superstructures

Wu, Sai-Bo; Cao, Huimin; Wu, Jin‐Bing; Ma, Lingling; Lu, Yan‐qing; Hu, Wei

doi:10.1002/adom.202102754

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…The equilibrium state is attributed to the accurate balance of the elastic energy, the anchoring energy, and external stimuli. During the past decade, many efforts have been made to enhance the controllability of LC self-organization, which may enable promising applications such as optical vortex array generation, [14,15] grating, [16,17] and microlens array fabrication. [18,19] Mechanical scrubbing [20] and chemically modified [21] surfaces are used to address the locations of LC domains and corresponding topological defects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailoring on Rotational Symmetry of Liquid Crystal Domain Lattices

Wu,

2023

Advanced Physics Research

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Rotational symmetry is ubiquitous in nature. However, self‐assemblies of soft condensed matter such as liquid crystals (LCs) are entropy‐driven, making the tailoring of rotational symmetry challenging. Here, an approach is proposed to control the rotational symmetry of LC domain lattices based on the anchoring condition predesign and the orientational‐order inheritance during the nematic‐smectic phase transition. By this means, periodic and quasiperiodic LC textures with Ci symmetry (i = 2–6) determined by the preset alignment lattices are realized, and verified by symmetries of diffraction patterns. Topological analysis is carried out to disclose distinct evolutions of orders between disclination line textures and defect wall textures of different rotational symmetries. The influences of anchoring conditions, phase transitions, and mechanical stress on the self‐assembly of LCs, as well as the underlying mechanisms and dynamics, are investigated. This work realizes controllable rotational symmetry for large‐area self‐organized LCs and brings new insights to soft condensed matter.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tailoring on Rotational Symmetry of Liquid Crystal Domain Lattices

Wu,

2023

Advanced Physics Research

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“…The other challenge is the strong intermolecular interactions and constant-layer-space restraint, leading the SmA to rarely respond to external stimuli and thus preventing dynamic tunability. Researchers have reported the electrically driven rotation and pitch tuning, [21] as well as lightdriven rotation of oily streaks, [22] another typical smectic texture occurs at lower film thickness. Unfortunately, the above tunabilities are not supported by TFCDs.…”

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confidence: 99%

Electrically Tunable Microlens Array Enabled by Polymer‐Stabilized Smectic Hierarchical Architectures

Cao

et al. 2022

Advanced Optical Materials

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Liquid crystals (LCs) are key functional materials that are broadly adopted in various fields due to their stimuli‐responsiveness. Recently, LCs with hierarchical architectures have brought new effects to optics and attracted intensive attention. In smectic A phase, the parallel molecular layers are periodically wrapped to form toric focal conic domains (TFCDs) under antagonistic boundary conditions (i.e., hybrid alignment conditions). TFCD shows great potential in nanofabrication and integral imaging. However, the arbitrary tailoring of TFCD is still challenging, and the robustness of hierarchical configuration hinders the tunability. Here, a radial alignment lattice is adopted to guide the local orientation of LCs and thus facilitates predefining the lattice symmetry and domain size of TFCDs. By introducing polymer stabilization and optimizing the composition, the sample simultaneously maintains the director distribution inside smectic layers and possesses the stimuli‐responsiveness of nematic phase at room temperature. By this means, microlens arrays are demonstrated with reversible electrical tunability. The strategy can be extended to other smectic configurations and may upgrade existing dynamic optics.

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Recent Progress in Functional Dye‐Doped Liquid Crystal Devices

Shen

Zhang

Miao

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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As a typical representative of dopants, organic functional dyes have demonstrated their significant roles in novel smart liquid crystal (LC) devices, and dye-doped LCs have also been a source of inspiration for scientists to design and fabricate stimuli-gated materials or devices for envisioned applications in a wide range of areas. In this review, the focus on dichroic dyes, fluorescent dyes, and photothermal dyes, and the recent progress of the LC devices employing these dyes as dopants are overviewed. The review highlights the developments of the novel LC devices doped with these dyes. The structures, designs, and applications of these devices are outlined. The underlying principles of dichroic dyes, fluorescent dyes, and photothermal dyes which are utilized as functional dopants in LC devices are first introduced. Subsequently, the novel developments of functional dye-doped LC devices in the application fields of smart windows, attenuators for augmented reality (AR) systems, color-changeable textiles, dichroic color filters, dual-mode circular polarizers, chirality detectors, optical limiters, switchable luminescent solar concentrators, multiple information encryption, anti-counterfeiting, photo-addressed transparent displays, circularly polarized luminescence, tunable lasers, and light-driven soft actuators are discussed. Finally, the challenge and the strategies for the future improvement of dye-doped LC devices are also discussed.

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Photo‐Actuated Chiral Smectic Superstructures

Cited by 4 publications

References 50 publications

Tailoring on Rotational Symmetry of Liquid Crystal Domain Lattices

Tailoring on Rotational Symmetry of Liquid Crystal Domain Lattices

Electrically Tunable Microlens Array Enabled by Polymer‐Stabilized Smectic Hierarchical Architectures

Recent Progress in Functional Dye‐Doped Liquid Crystal Devices

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