胆甾相液晶微液滴及其应用

Researches and applications of cholesteric liquid crystal droplets

液晶作为一种典型的软物质材料,既具有液体的流动性,又具有晶体的有序性,表现出极其丰富的自组装结构和独特的物理化学性质。除液晶显示之外,液晶在光学、功能材料等领域的新应用也取得了快速发展。液晶微液滴作为新的功能基元,具有功能丰富,易于加工集成等特点,受到了越来越多的关注和研究。其中,胆甾相液晶微液滴的功能和性质可以通过其结构和组成进行调控,具有重要的应用前景。基于此,本文详细综述了球形、扁椭球形和复杂结构胆甾相液晶微液滴的分子排列结构、物理化学性质及其前沿应用,并展望了液晶微液滴作为功能基元在智能响应材料、光学器件、软体机器人等领域的应用前景。

Liquid crystals are a typical functional soft matter,possessing both the fluidity of liquids and the ordering of crystals.Liquid crystals show rich self-assembled microstructures and unique physical and chemical properties.Besides,liquid crystal display,applications of liquid crystals in areas such as optics and functional materials have achieved a large progress.Liquid crystal droplets,which could serve as basic functional elements,own the characteristics of rich features,easy orientation and processing integration,have received extensive attention.The functions and properties of cholesteric liquid crystal droplets could be tuned by their microstructures and compositions,which show a great potential for applications.This review systematically summarizes the molecular arrangements,physicochemical properties and frontier applications of spherical,oblate and complex cholesteric droplets.The application prospects of liquid crys⁃tal droplets as functional elements in smart functional materials,photonic devices and soft robotics are also discussed.