Shin Min Jeong, Yoon Dong Ki
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, Daejeon 34141, Korea.
Department of Chemistry, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Korea.
Materials (Basel). 2020 Nov 30;13(23):5466. doi: 10.3390/ma13235466.
Achieving tunable physical properties is currently one of the most exciting research topics. In order to realize this goal, a medium that is responsive to external stimuli and can undergo a change in its physical property is required. Liquid crystal (LC) is a prominent candidate, as its physical and optical properties can be easily manipulated with various stimuli, such as surface anchoring, rubbing, geometric confinement, and external fields. Having broken away from the past devotion to obtaining a uniform domain of LCs, people are now putting significant efforts toward forming and manipulating ordered and oriented defect structures with a unique arrangement within. The complicated molecular order with tunability would benefit the interdisciplinary research fields of optics, physics, photonics, and materials science. In this review, the recent progress toward defect engineering in the nematic and smectic phases by controlling the surface environment and electric field and their combinational methods is introduced. We close the review with a discussion of the possible applications enabled using LC defect structures as switchable materials.
实现可调控的物理性质是当前最令人兴奋的研究课题之一。为了实现这一目标，需要一种能够响应外部刺激并改变其物理性质的介质。液晶（LC）是一个突出的候选者，因为其物理和光学性质可以通过各种刺激轻松操纵，如表面锚定、摩擦、几何限制和外部场。人们已经不再像过去那样致力于获得均匀的液晶区域，而是现在正在大力努力形成和操纵内部具有独特排列的有序和取向缺陷结构。具有可调性的复杂分子排列将有利于光学、物理学、光子学和材料科学等跨学科研究领域。在这篇综述中，介绍了通过控制表面环境和电场及其组合方法在向列相和近晶相的缺陷工程方面的最新进展。我们在综述结尾讨论了使用液晶缺陷结构作为可切换材料的可能应用。
