Colloidal liquid crystals in square confinement: isotropic, nematic and smectic phases

We report on the confinement of colloidal liquid crystals in three dimensional chambers with a square footprint. To this end we use colloidal silica rods and exploit their relatively large density difference with respect to the dispersing solvent to study isotropic, nematic and smectic phases confin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physics. Condensed matter 2017-02, Vol.29 (6), p.064003-064003
Main Authors: Cortes, Louis B G, Gao, Yongxiang, Dullens, Roel P A, Aarts, Dirk G A L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
confinement
liquid crystals
smectic
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Summary:We report on the confinement of colloidal liquid crystals in three dimensional chambers with a square footprint. To this end we use colloidal silica rods and exploit their relatively large density difference with respect to the dispersing solvent to study isotropic, nematic and smectic phases confined into a single chamber. Combining laser scanning confocal microscopy and soft-lithography techniques enables us to characterize the configurations down to the single particle level. We will focus on the smectic phase and compare to recent theories and simulations.
ISSN:0953-8984
1361-648X
DOI:10.1088/1361-648X/29/6/064003