Structural Transition in Liquid Crystal Bubbles Generated from Fluidic Nanocellulose Colloids

Guang Chu; Rita Vilensky; Gleb Vasilyev; Shengwei Deng; Dan Qu; Yan Xu; Eyal Zussman

doi:10.1002/anie.201703869

Structural Transition in Liquid Crystal Bubbles Generated from Fluidic Nanocellulose Colloids

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2017 Jul 17;56(30):8751-8755. doi: 10.1002/anie.201703869. Epub 2017 Jun 21.

Authors

Guang Chu¹, Rita Vilensky¹, Gleb Vasilyev¹, Shengwei Deng¹, Dan Qu², Yan Xu², Eyal Zussman¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000, Israel.
² State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, Jilin University, 2699 Qianjin Street, Changchun, 130012, China.

PMID: 28570772
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201703869

Abstract

The structural transition in micrometer-sized liquid crystal bubbles (LCBs) derived from rod-like cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) was studied. The CNC-based LCBs were suspended in nematic or chiral nematic liquid-crystalline CNCs, which generated topological defects and distinct birefringent textures around them. The ordering and structure of the LCBs shifted from a nematic to chiral nematic arrangement as water evaporation progressed. These packed LCBs exhibited a specific photonic cross-communication property that is due to a combination of Bragg reflection and bubble curvature and size.

Keywords: active structure; cellulose nanocrystals; liquid crystal bubbles; topological defects.