Issue 32, 2013

Star colloids in nematic liquid crystals

Abstract

We present a study of the elastic alignment, accompanying director field distortions, and elastic pair interactions of star-shaped colloids suspended in aligned nematic liquid crystals. We design and fabricate lithographic colloids, “N-stars”, containing N rod-like protrusions (i.e. “rays” or “arms”) each having a constant angle between adjacent rays. N-star geometries contain concave regions while retaining the rotational and mirror symmetries of regular polygonal platelets having N sides. Planar anchoring of the nematic director at N-star surfaces induces elastic deformations of the uniform background director, resulting in distinct orientational states and pair interactions that depend upon N. Director fields around isolated N-stars are characterized using polarized optical microscopy. For each N-star, we observe long-lived metastable orientational states with accompanying metastable director configurations, which are topologically distinct from the ground state director field. We develop a model, based on a superposition of the elastic energy of rod-like inclusions at appropriate angles to the far-field director, to estimate the energies in both cases. Numerical calculations of the director field around an individual ray elucidate the effect of azimuthal degeneracy in the anchoring and cross-sectional shape of the ray. The analytical results agree with the simulations, however, we find that the total elastic energy must be rescaled to account for weaker anchoring. The long-range elastic pair interactions between N-stars are probed using optical tweezers and video microscopy. We observe a distinct multipole depending on whether N is even or odd, which dominates the distance-dependence for attractive elastic forces between pairs of N-stars. Finally, we discuss assemblies made up of mixtures of different types of N-stars that display a variety of aggregated states.

Graphical abstract: Star colloids in nematic liquid crystals

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 May 2013
Accepted
24 Jun 2013
First published
09 Jul 2013

Soft Matter, 2013,9, 7843-7854

Star colloids in nematic liquid crystals

C. P. Lapointe, K. Mayoral and T. G. Mason, Soft Matter, 2013, 9, 7843 DOI: 10.1039/C3SM51303C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements