Liquid crystal-templated chiral nanomaterials: from chiral plasmonics to circularly polarized luminescence

Abstract

Chiral nanomaterials with intrinsic chirality or spatial asymmetry at the nanoscale are currently in the limelight of both fundamental research and diverse important technological applications due to their unprecedented physicochemical characteristics such as intense light-matter interactions, enhanced circular dichroism, and strong circularly polarized luminescence. Herein, we provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art advances in liquid crystal-templated chiral nanomaterials. The chiroptical properties of chiral nanomaterials are touched, and their fundamental design principles and bottom-up synthesis strategies are discussed. Different chiral functional nanomaterials based on liquid-crystalline soft templates, including chiral plasmonic nanomaterials and chiral luminescent nanomaterials, are systematically introduced, and their underlying mechanisms, properties, and potential applications are emphasized. This review concludes with a perspective on the emerging applications, challenges, and future opportunities of such fascinating chiral nanomaterials. This review can not only deepen our understanding of the fundamentals of soft-matter chirality, but also shine light on the development of advanced chiral functional nanomaterials toward their versatile applications in optics, biology, catalysis, electronics, and beyond.

Over 200 °C Broad‐Temperature Lasers Reconstructed from a Blue‐Phase Polymer Scaffold

“…[22][23][24][25] Particularly, LC is an ideal candidate for organic optical resonant cavities owing to its self-assembled ordered structures with a tunable photonic bandgap responding to external stimuli. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] Blue-phase (BP) liquid crystals (BPLCs) [38][39][40] appeared between the cholesteric (Ch) and isotropic (Iso) states with 3D photonic bandgap, which have superior optical properties [41] for lasers, such as the lower threshold [42,43] and omnidirectional lasing. [44] Therefore, probing light confinement in the BPLCs and using them as novel soft lasers are of great interest.…”

Light-Reconfiguring Inhomogeneous Soft Helical Pitch with Fatigue Resistance and Reversibility

“…These results indicate that the inhomogeneous helical pitch length on such a broad reflection band of the LC system is very significant in the generation, modulation, and manipulation of a broadband CPL with high g lum factor, especially in overcoming a formidable challenge in luminescent materials, optics, soft condensed physics, and biophotonics. − Remarkably, the CPL system endows robust reversibility in g lum value upon alternate irradiation with UV and visible light (Figure h). The achievement of such a high g lum value of 1.88 is attributed to the polarization mode dependence of the photons localized in the helical optical microcavity with a unique inhomogeneous helical pitch.…”

Bioinspired MXene-Based Soft Actuators Exhibiting Angle-Independent Structural Color

“…As proof-of-concept illustrations, angle-independent structurally colored soft actuators were used to demonstrate a blue gripper such as bird's claw that can capture the target, artificial green tendrils that can twine around the tree branches, and artificial multicolored butterflies that can flutter the wings, as well as biomimetic blooming flowers and inchworm-inspired soft walkers, upon cyclic exposure to acetone vapor. This research is expected to shed new light on the design and synthesis of advanced photonic nanostructures with angle-independent structural color and provide useful insights for the development of biomimetic multifunctional soft actuators toward somatosensory soft robotics, next-generation intelligent machines and thermal regulation materials [58][59][60][61][62][63].…”