Abstract
Recent advances in experimental studies of nanoparticle-driven stabilization of chiral liquid-crystalline phases are highlighted. The stabilization is achieved via the nanoparticles’ assembly in the defect lattices of the soft liquid-crystalline hosts. This is of significant importance for understanding the interactions of nanoparticles with topological defects and for envisioned technological applications. We demonstrate that blue phases are stabilized and twist-grain boundary phases are induced by dispersing surface-functionalized CdSSe quantum dots, spherical Au nanoparticles, as well as MoS2 nanoplatelets and reduced-graphene oxide nanosheets in chiral liquid crystals. Phase diagrams are shown based on calorimetric and optical measurements. Our findings related to the role of the nanoparticle core composition, size, shape, and surface coating on the stabilization effect are presented, followed by an overview of and comparison with other related studies in the literature. Moreover, the key points of the underlying mechanisms are summarized and prospects in the field are briefly discussed.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilLiquid crystals (LCs) are soft materials exhibiting many intermediate phases, the so-called mesophases, with structures in between the high-symmetry disordered liquid and the low-symmetry ordered crystal phases
Stabilization in single LC compounds was reported by Karatairi et al [56] and Cordoyiannis et al [57], by dispersing 3.5 nm CdSe quantum dots surface-functionalized with oleyl amine (OA) and trioctyl phosphine (TOP) in
Optical textures for the CE8 + Au χ = 0.002 mixture are presented in Figure 5a–d, followed by the phase diagram of the CE8 + Au system in Figure 5e.The results on CE8 + CdSSe and CE8 + Au mixtures, indicate that coating of NPs with flexible OA molecules reduces the NP-induced distortions of the surrounding LC ordering, marking the robustness and general character of the adaptive defect core targeting (ADCT) mechanism [17]
Summary
BPs were present (albeit unknown at that time) in cholesteryl benzoate, since Reinitzer noticed already some reflections of green and blue [1] They were essentially brought to the attention of the scientific community much later [22], and the term ‘blue phase’ was introduced in a study of cholesteryl compounds by Coates and Gray [23]. Numerous studies have focused on deciphering their structure, yielding a macroscopically amorphous network of disclination lines for BPIII [26], changing to a three-dimensional simple cubic for BPII and a body-centered cubic lattice for BPI [27,28]. LCs could be viewed as candidates for photonic bandgap applications These findings evoked a major revival of the research interest in studying and stabilizing these phases over wider temperature ranges [38]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
