Reconfigurable swarms of colloidal particles electrophoretically driven in nematic liquid crystals

We present experiments where anisometric colloidal microparticles dispersed in a nematic liquid crystal cell with homeotropic anchoring conditions are dynamically assembled by means of liquid-crystal-enabled electrophoresis (LCEEP) using an AC electric field perpendicular to the confining plates. A...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Hernández Navarro, Sergi, Tierno, Pietro, Ignés i Mullol, Jordi, Sagués i Mestre, Francesc
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/67059
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/67059
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Electroforesi
Col·loides
Electrophoresis
Colloids
Descripción
Sumario:We present experiments where anisometric colloidal microparticles dispersed in a nematic liquid crystal cell with homeotropic anchoring conditions are dynamically assembled by means of liquid-crystal-enabled electrophoresis (LCEEP) using an AC electric field perpendicular to the confining plates. A nematic host with negative dielectric anisotropy leads to a driving force parallel to the cell plates. We take advantage of the resulting gliding anchoring conditions and the degeneracy in the direction of particle motion to design reconfigurable trajectories using a photosensitive anchoring layer (azosilane self-assembled monolayer), as the particle trajectory follows the local director orientation.