Abstract
Colloidal particles in nematic liquid crystals create elastic distortion and experience long-range forces. The symmetry of elastic distortion and consequently the complexity of interaction strongly depends largely on the liquid crystal anchoring, topology and shape of the particles. Here, we introduce a new nematic colloidal system made of peanut-shaped hematite particles. We report experimental studies on spontaneous orientation, mutual interaction, laser assisted self-assembly and the effect of external magnetic fields on the colloids. Majority of the colloids spontaneously orient either parallel or perpendicular to the nematic director. The colloids that are oriented perpendicularly exhibit two types of textures due to the out of plane tilting, which is corroborated by the Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor modelling. The transverse magnetic moment of the peanut-shaped colloids is estimated by using a simple analysis based on the competing effects of magnetic and elastic torques.
Highlights
Colloidal particles dispersed in anisotropic solvents such as liquid crystals (LCs) are a fascinating class of soft matter
The particles are first characterised by scanning electron microscope (SEM)
Among the quadrupolar colloids majority of them are tilted with respect to the plane of the cell, which has been corroborated by the computer simulation results obtained from Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor modelling
Summary
Colloidal particles dispersed in anisotropic solvents such as liquid crystals (LCs) are a fascinating class of soft matter. It is expected that in anisotropic solvent such as in nematic liquid crystals we can engender the diversity of the interaction, orientation and the self-assembly of the peanut-shaped colloids by exploiting the combined effect of magnetic and elastic www.nature.com/scientificreports/. A peanut shape benefits from anisotropic interactions, while retaining smooth sphere-like geometry on both ends, which helps in formation of regular chains and lattices. With this aim we study spontaneous orientation, induced defects, anisotropic elastic interactions, directed self-assembly and magnetically driven rearrangement of peanut-shaped magnetic colloids. By balancing the liquid crystal imposed forces with applied magnetic field we determine the elastic torque which leads to the quantitative measurement of the magnetic dipole moment of the peanut-shaped particles
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