Shuai M, Klittnick A, Shen Y, Smith G P, Tuchband M R, Zhu C, Petschek R G, Mertelj A, Lisjak D, Čopič M, Maclennan J E, Glaser M A, Clark N A
Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Nat Commun. 2016 Jan 28;7:10394. doi: 10.1038/ncomms10394.
Ferrofluids are familiar as colloidal suspensions of ferromagnetic nanoparticles in aqueous or organic solvents. The dispersed particles are randomly oriented but their moments become aligned if a magnetic field is applied, producing a variety of exotic and useful magnetomechanical effects. A longstanding interest and challenge has been to make such suspensions macroscopically ferromagnetic, that is having uniform magnetic alignment in the absence of a field. Here we report a fluid suspension of magnetic nanoplates that spontaneously aligns into an equilibrium nematic liquid crystal phase that is also macroscopically ferromagnetic. Its zero-field magnetization produces distinctive magnetic self-interaction effects, including liquid crystal textures of fluid block domains arranged in closed flux loops, and makes this phase highly sensitive, with it dramatically changing shape even in the Earth's magnetic field.
铁磁流体作为铁磁性纳米颗粒在水性或有机溶剂中的胶体悬浮液为人所熟知。分散的颗粒随机取向,但如果施加磁场,它们的磁矩就会排列整齐,产生各种奇异且有用的磁机械效应。长期以来,人们一直感兴趣并面临挑战的是使这种悬浮液在宏观上具有铁磁性,即在没有磁场的情况下具有均匀的磁取向。在此,我们报告了一种磁性纳米片的流体悬浮液,它能自发排列成平衡向列液晶相,且在宏观上也是铁磁性的。其零场磁化产生独特的磁自相互作用效应,包括排列成闭合磁通回路的流体块状畴的液晶纹理,并使该相高度敏感,即使在地球磁场中其形状也会发生显著变化。