Fabrication of disordered porous structures by solvent-assisted reorganisation of liquid crystal materials

Shaping of self-assembled soft materials is of interest for material science and nanotechnology applications because it can provide a flexible and easy method to obtain a single domain in a large area, which is used in opto-electronic and patterning applications. Here, we fabricated disordered porous structures of liquid crystals (LCs) by using a solvent-assisted treatment. Initially, the LC-based layered structures had either toric focal conic domains (TFCDs) or planar aligned samples. After treatment, disordered porous structures with randomly oriented layers were obtained although both initial and final states exhibited short-range ordering of the LC molecules. This behaviour was precisely analysed by polarised optical microscopy (POM), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD) methods. Our resultant platform showed that disordered porous structures formed by LC materials can be used for tuneable and reversible multiple scattering applications.

自组装软材料的成型技术在材料科学与纳米技术应用领域备受关注，因其可提供一种灵活简便的方法，在大面积范围内获得单畴结构，该结构可应用于光电与图案化场景。本研究采用溶剂辅助处理法制备了液晶（liquid crystals, LCs）的无序多孔结构。初始阶段，基于液晶的层状结构要么呈现环形焦点锥畴（toric focal conic domains, TFCDs），要么为平面取向样品。经处理后，尽管初始与最终状态均展现出液晶分子的短程有序性，但最终得到了层状结构随机取向的无序多孔结构。研究人员通过偏振光学显微镜（polarised optical microscopy, POM）、场发射扫描电子显微镜（field-emission scanning electron microscopy, FESEM）以及掠入射X射线衍射（grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, GIXD）对该现象进行了精准分析。本研究所搭建的实验平台表明，由液晶材料制备的无序多孔结构可应用于可调谐且可逆的多重散射场景。