Discotic liquid crystal-nanoparticle hybrid systems

Discotic liquid crystal-nanoparticle hybrid systems

Discotic liquid crystals (DLCs) are nanomaterials with sizes ranging from 2 to 6 nm, and they are emerging as one-dimensional organic semiconducting materials. Recently, hybridization of these materials with various metallic and semiconducting nanoparticles (NPs) to alter and improve their properties has been realized. This article provides an overview of the developments in the field of newly ...

Capillary oscillations and instabilities of discotic liquid crystal threads

2014 Mechanical experiments on thin threads in discotic liquid crystal are described. Thread resonance under oscillating electric field excitation allows the measurement of the surface tension. Buckling instabilities are observed under mechanical compression and also under magnetic field. All these effects, dominated by surface tension after plastic relaxation, are characteristic of the discoti...

Observation of an anchoring transition in a discotic liquid crystal

– We report the anchoring transition in a discotic liquid crystal, hexapentyloxytriphenylene (HPT), from edge-on to side-on alignment in a discotic phase. The topology, easy direction of orientation and the coating of the substrate with a polymer are the determining factors for the alignment and the anchoring transition in a discotic liquid crystal. Discotic liquid crystals are perfect examples...

Shear-induced orientational effects in discotic-liquid-crystal micelles.

Column undulation instability in a discotic liquid crystal

2014 We present the first observation of an undulation instability of the columns in a tubular discotic liquid crystal when submitted to a dilation normal to the columns. This effect is very similar to the layer undulation in smectic materials. From the instability threshold and from the undulation wavelength, we derive a value, anomalously large, of the column curvature elastic constant, very ...