Wang Hanrong, Chen Zhong, Yuan Yongjie, Zhang Hailiang
Key Laboratory of Polymeric Materials and Application Technology of Hunan Province, Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Materials of Colleges and Universities of Hunan Province, College of Chemistry, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan 411105, Hunan Province, China.
Key Laboratory of Precise Synthesis of Functional Molecules of Zhejiang Province, School of Science, Instrumentation and Service Center for Molecular Sciences, Westlake University, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou 310024, Zhejiang Province, China.
Soft Matter. 2022 Jul 27;18(29):5483-5491. doi: 10.1039/d2sm00705c.
In recent years, great progress has been made in the preparation methods and performance regulation of host-guest doped CPL liquid crystal materials. However, there still exist some basic problems to be solved, such as complex packaging and unstable CPL properties. With the consideration of the above problems, in this study, we introduced gelators into the host-guest doped CPL liquid crystal materials to prepare CPL liquid crystal physical gels. The gelators can be assembled to form a nanofiber physical gel network, which limits the movement of the liquid crystals and enhances the stability of the CPL properties. Meanwhile, liquid crystal physical gels show self-supporting ability and the gel-sol phase transition temperature can reach 136 °C. The amplification of the value is achieved by self-assembly of chiral liquid crystals, and the value can reach -0.31. The phase structure changes with electric field and temperature, and the CPL properties can be regulated by changing the temperature and electric field. With the increasing applied voltage or the temperature, the value decreases. Therefore, we have successfully prepared a new type of CPL liquid crystal physical gels with self-supporting performance, stimulus response performance and large values.
