Ultrastable liquid crystalline blue phase from molecular synergistic self-assembly
Open Access
- 4 March 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature Communications
- Vol. 12 (1), 1-8
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21564-y
Abstract
Fabricating functional materials via molecular self-assembly is a promising approach, and precisely controlling the molecular building blocks of nanostructures in the self-assembly process is an essential and challenging task. Blue phase liquid crystals are fascinating self-assembled three-dimensional nanomaterials because of their potential information displays and tuneable photonic applications. However, one of the main obstacles to their applications is their narrow temperature range of a few degrees centigrade, although many prior studies have broadened it to tens via molecular design. In this work, a series of tailored uniaxial rodlike mesogens disfavouring the formation of blue phases are introduced into a blue phase system comprising biaxial dimeric mesogens, a blue phase is observed continuously over a temperature range of 280 °C, and the range remains over 132.0 °C after excluding the frozen glassy state. The findings show that the molecular synergistic self-assembly behavior of biaxial and uniaxial mesogens may play a crucial role in achieving the ultrastable three-dimensional nanostructure of blue phases.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (51720105002, 51921002)
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
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