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.
@article{arxiv.1605.06472,
title = {Reconfigurable swarms of colloidal particles electrophoretically drivenin nematic liquid crystals},
author = {Sergi Hernàndez-Navarro and Pietro Tierno and Jordi Ignés-Mullol and Francesc Sagués},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.06472},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals Volume 610, Issue 1, 2015