Heat-Driven Rigid-Body Rotation of a Mixture of Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Droplets and Colloids

We show that cholesteric
(Ch) liquid crystal droplets with cylindrically
symmetric orientation dispersing in an isotropic (Iso) phase exhibited
unidirectional rotation under a heat flux along the symmetry axis.
By introducing colloidal particle adhesive to the Ch droplet surface,
we traced the translational motion of the colloids and found that
the colloids rotated unidirectionally around the center of each Ch
droplet. The director configuration of the droplets was not distorted
either spatially or temporally, while the colloids rotated constantly.
The results suggest that the Ch droplets under the heat flux should
rotate as a rigid body. Using this heat-driven rotation of the Ch
droplets, we designed new geometries of various composites of Ch droplets
and colloids and succeeded in driving intriguing complex dynamics.