Chiral nematic liquid crystals are known to form blue phases - liquid states of matter that exhibit ordered cubic arrangements of topological defects. Blue-phase specimens, however, are generally polycrystalline, consisting of randomly oriented domains that limit their performance in applications. A strategy that relies on nano-patterned substrates is presented here for preparation of stable, macroscopic single-crystal blue-phase materials. Different template designs are conceived to exert control over different planes of the blue-phase lattice orientation with respect to the underlying substrate. Experiments are then used to demonstrate that it is indeed possible to create stable single-crystal blue-phase domains with the desired orientation over large regions. These results provide a potential avenue to fully exploit the electro-optical properties of blue phases, which have been hindered by the existence of grain boundaries.
CITATION STYLE
Martínez-González, J. A., Li, X., Sadati, M., Zhou, Y., Zhang, R., Nealey, P. F., & De Pablo, J. J. (2017). Directed self-assembly of liquid crystalline blue-phases into ideal single-crystals. Nature Communications, 8. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15854
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