Field-induced Director Alignment of MCM-41/liquid crystals

Substrate-induced bulk alignment of liquid crystals.

Director alignment relative to the temperature gradient in nematic liquid crystals studied by molecular dynamics simulation.

The director alignment relative to the temperature gradient in nematic liquid crystal model systems consisting of soft oblate or prolate ellipsoids of revolution has been studied by molecular dynamics simulation. The temperature gradient is maintained by thermostating different parts of the system at different temperatures by using a Gaussian thermostat. It is found that the director of the pro...

Direct mapping of local director field of nematic liquid crystals at the nanoscale.

Liquid crystals (LCs), owing to their anisotropy in molecular ordering, are of wide interest in both the display industry and soft matter as a route to more sophisticated optical objects, to direct phase separation, and to facilitate colloidal assemblies. However, it remains challenging to directly probe the molecular-scale organization of nonglassy nematic LC molecules without altering the LC ...

Elasticity of lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals probed by director reorientation in a magnetic field.

Using a magnetic Frederiks transition technique, we measure the temperature and concentration dependences of splay K1, twist K2, and bend K3 elastic constants for the lyotropic chromonic liquid crystal sunset yellow formed through noncovalent reversible aggregation of organic molecules in water. K1 and K3 are comparable to each other and are an order of magnitude higher than K2. At higher conce...

Flow and magnetic field induced collagen alignment.

A straightforward technique to align thin collagen gels is presented. This technique requires only collagen solution, surface-modified magnetic beads, a small magnet, and an incubator. As such, this is the only collagen alignment technique that requires no specialized equipment. The collagen gels are imaged with confocal reflectance microscopy, and degree of alignment is quantitatively assessed...