Compartmentalized Janus droplets of photoresponsive cholesteric liquid crystals and poly(dimethylsiloxane)-based oligomers

Abstract

A new kind of Janus droplet containing photoresponsive cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) was fabricated for the first time and their formation, compartment structure, mesophase texture and function were thoroughly investigated. In the droplets, the CLC compartments included a typical nematic LC (4′-pentyl-4-biphenylcarbonitrile) doped with an azobenzene-containing chiral dopant, and the other compartments were formed of a poly(dimethylsiloxane)-based oligomer. Janus droplets were fabricated through microphase separation of the incompatible components in chloroform solution dispersed in an aqueous medium, induced by slow evaporation of chloroform. The mesophase structures of the CLC phase in Janus droplets, both suspended in aqueous medium and spreading on substrates, were controlled by the bulk elastic free energy of the CLC phase, surface anchoring and confining geometries. The helix pitch of the cholesteric phase in the droplets was determined by the doping concentration of the chiral dopant. For the suspended Janus droplets with the helix pitch obviously smaller than the droplet sizes, the CLC compartments mainly possessed a bipolar structure instead of the Frank–Pryce structure typically observed on CLC droplets. After the Janus droplets spread on the substrates, the CLC compartments changed to crescent shapes due to the different wettability characteristics of the two compartments, and the formed stable and metastable CLC configurations were distinctively different from those in the suspensions. Interestingly, when the Janus droplets spreading on substrates were irradiated with a laser beam (λ = 488 nm) of low intensity, the directors in the CLC compartments rearranged to form fingerprint structures with minimum total energy.