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.
Highlights
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
Castles et al achieved a BP composite material with a superwide temperature range by injecting an achiral LC mixture with a high clearing point into a polymer template prefabricated from a polymer stabilized BP (PSBP) in which LC was washed-out[6]
We demonstrate that an ultrastable BP system can be achieved by engineering the molecular synergistic self-assembly of tailored biaxial dimeric and uniaxial rodlike mesogens
Summary
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. Kikuchi et al pioneered a polymer stabilized BP (PSBP) system in which the BPs were stabilized by polymer networks, obtaining a wide temperature range of over 60.0 °C (~53.0 to −13.0 °C)[1] This PSBP was applied by the Samsung Co. in 2008 to demonstrate the first BP liquid crystal display prototype[19], with attractive characteristics[20] such as a submillisecond grey-to-grey response time, color filter- and alignment layers-free operation, optically isotropic voltage-off state, and large cell gap tolerance. Castles et al achieved a BP composite material with a superwide temperature range (from −125 to 125 °C observed via polarizing optical microscopy) by injecting an achiral LC mixture with a high clearing point into a polymer template prefabricated from a PSBP in which LC was washed-out[6] This type of BP templated material has considerable potential in photonics applications, such as mirrorless lasers and switchable electro-optic devices[21]. We demonstrate that an ultrastable BP system can be achieved by engineering the molecular synergistic self-assembly of tailored biaxial dimeric and uniaxial rodlike mesogens
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