A liquid-crystalline hexagonal columnar phase in highly-dilute suspensions of imogolite nanotubes

Erwan Paineau (), Marie-Eve M. Krapf, Mohamed-Salah Amara, Natalia V. Matskova, Ivan Dozov, Stéphan Rouzière, Antoine Thill, Pascale Launois and Patrick Davidson
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Erwan Paineau: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay
Marie-Eve M. Krapf: LIONS, NIMBE, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, CEA-Saclay
Mohamed-Salah Amara: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay
Natalia V. Matskova: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay
Ivan Dozov: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay
Stéphan Rouzière: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay
Antoine Thill: LIONS, NIMBE, CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay, CEA-Saclay
Pascale Launois: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay
Patrick Davidson: Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Liquid crystals have found wide applications in many fields ranging from detergents to information displays and they are also increasingly being used in the ‘bottom-up’ self-assembly approach of material nano-structuration. Moreover, liquid-crystalline organizations are frequently observed by biologists. Here we show that one of the four major lyotropic liquid-crystal phases, the columnar one, is much more stable on dilution than reported so far in literature. Indeed, aqueous suspensions of imogolite nanotubes, at low ionic strength, display the columnar liquid-crystal phase at volume fractions as low as ∼0.2%. Consequently, due to its low visco-elasticity, this columnar phase is easily aligned in an alternating current electric field, in contrast with usual columnar liquid-crystal phases. These findings should have important implications for the statistical physics of the suspensions of charged rods and could also be exploited in materials science to prepare ordered nanocomposites and in biophysics to better understand solutions of rod-like biopolymers.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10271

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