Diffusionless transformation of soft cubic superstructure from amorphous to simple cubic and body-centered cubic phases

Jie Liu, Wenzhe Liu, Bo Guan, Bo Wang, Lei Shi, Feng Jin, Zhigang Zheng (), Jingxia Wang (), Tomiki Ikeda and Lei Jiang
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Jie Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wenzhe Liu: Fudan University
Bo Guan: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Bo Wang: Fudan University
Lei Shi: Fudan University
Feng Jin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhigang Zheng: East China University of Science and Technology
Jingxia Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tomiki Ikeda: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Lei Jiang: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract In a narrow temperature window in going from the isotropic to highly chiral orders, cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit so-called blue phases, consisting of different morphologies of long, space-filling double twisted cylinders. Those of cubic spatial symmetry have attracted considerable attention in recent years as templates for soft photonic materials. The latter often requires the creation of monodomains of predefined orientation and size, but their engineering is complicated by a lack of comprehensive understanding of how blue phases nucleate and transform into each other at a submicrometer length scale. In this work, we accomplish this by intercepting nucleation processes at intermediate stages with fast cross-linking of a stabilizing polymer matrix. We reveal using transmission electron microscopy, synchrotron small-angle X-ray diffraction, and angle-resolved microspectroscopy that the grid of double-twisted cylinders undergoes highly coordinated, diffusionless transformations. In light of our findings, the implementation of several applications is discussed, such as temperature-switchable QR codes, micro-area lasing, and fabrication of blue phase liquid crystals with large domain sizes.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23631-w

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