Fullerenes surface gratings for liquid crystal alignment

Abstract

We report on the formation of surface structures by photopolymerization of C60 and C70 in isotropic solutions. The structures show the same periodicity of the interference patterns used for photopolymerization and behave as diffraction gratings. Mass spectrometry confirmed that the deposited material contains polymerized fullerenes, while the structure of the deposit was investigated by atomic force microscopy. We have also shown that these periodic structures are useful for inducing mesophase orientation.

Asymmetric Fullerene Nanosurfactant: Interface Engineering for Automatic Molecular Alignments

“…Dispersions of gold spheres, nickel bowls, and carbon nanotubes are good examples of agents achieving the uniform LC alignments by optimizing their shape, size, and concentration, resulting in this exciting invention being geared toward the one‐bottle approach . In addition, the use of nanoparticles in LC media has improved the electro‐optical performances, achieving high contrast ratios, fast response times, and low driving voltages . Therefore, many organic chemists and device physicists have focused on the nanoparticle‐induced automatic LC alignment for the technologically significant nanoscale manufacturing .…”

Impact of nanoscale particles and carbon nanotubes on current and future generations of liquid crystal displays

“…fullerenes, bridging the 'gap' between metallic and semiconducting nanoparticles and CNTs have also been used to manipulate the properties of LCs. For example, Golemme et al demonstrated the use of diffraction gratings made of photopolymerized C 60 and C 70 that can serve as planar alignment layers for N-LCs, 46 and enhanced switching speed in fullerene-doped nematic phases. 47 As for non-nematic LCD technologies such as surface-stabilized ferroelectric LC (SSFLC) displays, examples dealing with nanoparticle-filled smectic phases in general are rather rare.…”

Synthesis of new liquid crystals embedded gold nanoparticles for photoswitching properties

“…The Au-NP properties can be tuned with LCs which initiated changes in the localized surface plasmon resonances [28]. The liquid crystals are unique candidates to manipulate Au-NP assembly [29][30][31], as well as their electronic and optical properties for novel nanoscale devices [32]. In addition, the liquid crystals properties can also be affected by the Au-NP, such as electro-optic properties [33] and alignment of LC molecules used in the display applications [23].…”