Liquid Crystals: Vertically Aligned Graphene Layer Arrays from Chromonic Liquid Crystal Precursors (Adv. Mater. 4/2011)

Abstract

The inside cover shows the optical texture of a “chromonic liquid crystal”, formed by a disklike organic dye in aqueous solution. The disks stack into supramolecular rods, which then self-avoid at high concentration to make ordered liquid phases, as reported by Fei Guo, Robert Hurt, and co-workers on p. 508. They show that chromonic precursors can be used to fabricate vertically aligned graphene layer arrays on substrates by liquid coating and carbonization. The arrays can be aligned or patterned using local shear forces and have unique high-activity graphene edge-rich surfaces.