Abstract
The research field of liquid crystals and their applications is recently changing from being largely focused on display applications and optical shutter elements in various fields, to quite novel and diverse applications in the area of nanotechnology and nanoscience. Functional nanoparticles have recently been used to a significant extent to modify the physical properties of liquid crystals by the addition of ferroelectric and magnetic particles of different shapes, such as arbitrary and spherical, rods, wires and discs. Also, particles influencing optical properties are increasingly popular, such as quantum dots, plasmonic, semiconductors and metamaterials. The self-organization of liquid crystals is exploited to order templates and orient nanoparticles. Similarly, nanoparticles such as rods, nanotubes and graphene oxide are shown to form lyotropic liquid crystal phases in the presence of isotropic host solvents. These effects lead to a wealth of novel applications, many of which will be reviewed in this publication.
Highlights
For many materials, the transition between the liquid and the solid phase is not a single-step process, but a range of various mesophases, which are called liquid crystals (LCs)
It is well known that suspensions of anisotropic nanorods or nanoplates, viruses, nano-cellulose, carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide can form lyotropic LC phases, which are usually accompanied by surprising physical properties [157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165]
We summarized the influence of nanoparticle doping on the electro-optical and other physical properties, of liquid crystals, including molecule alignment, viscosity, clearing point, In this paper, we summarized the influence of nanoparticle doping on the electro-optical and or elastic constants, just to name a few of the properties introduced
Summary
The transition between the liquid and the solid phase is not a single-step process, but a range of various mesophases, which are called liquid crystals (LCs). Due to the great potential in both fundamental science and applications, this top-down assembly approach, where spontaneous or artificially generated LC textures are utilized as templates for organizing nanoparticles on controlled lattices or confining them in designed defects, has been increasingly coming into the spotlight Another interesting research field of LC–nanomaterial technology that is worthwhile to discuss is the self-assembly of lyotropic LCs composed of 1- or 2D anisotropic nanomaterials [3,7]. The size dispersion, shape anisotropy, and surface morphology of the nanomaterials are well controlled All of these developments will definitely lead to a dramatic increase in the use of nanoparticle-based LCs. Nowadays, it is well known that suspensions of anisotropic nanorods or nanoplates, viruses, nano-cellulose, carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide can form lyotropic LC phases, which are usually accompanied by surprising physical properties [157,158,159,160,161,162,163,164,165]. The book by Li [167]
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