Pumping Liquid Crystals

Programmable self-propelling actuators enabled by a dynamic helical medium

Rotation-translation conversion is a popular way to achieve power transmission in machinery, but it is rarely selected by nature. One unique case is that of bacteria swimming, which is based on the collective reorganization and rotation of flagella. Here, we mimic such motion using the light-driven evolution of a self-organized periodic arch pattern. The range and direction of translation are altered by separately varying the alignment period and the stimulating photon energy. Programmable self-propelling actuators are realized via a specific molecular assembly within a photoresponsive cholesteric medium. Through rationally presetting alignments, parallel transports of microspheres in customized trajectories are demonstrated, including convergence, divergence, gathering, and orbital revolution. This work extends the understanding of the rotation-translation conversion performed in an exquisitely self-organized system and may inspire future designs for functional materials and intelligent robotics.

Field generated nematic microflows via backflow mechanism

Generation of flow is an important aspect in microfluidic applications and generally relies on external pumps or embedded moving mechanical parts which pose distinct limitations and protocols on the use of microfluidic systems. A possible approach to avoid moving mechanical parts is to generate flow by changing some selected property or structure of the fluid. In fluids with internal orientational order such as nematic liquid crystals, this process of flow generation is known as the backflow effect. In this article, we demonstrate the contact-free generation of microfluidic material flows in nematic fluids -including directed contact-free pumping- by external electric and optical fields based on the dynamic backflow coupling between nematic order and material flow. Using numerical modelling, we design efficient shaping and driving of the backflow-generated material flow using spatial profiles and time modulations of electric fields with oscillating amplitude, rotating electric fields and optical fields. Particularly, we demonstrate how such periodic external fields generate efficient net average nematic flows through a microfluidic channel, that avoid usual invariance under time-reversal limitations. We show that a laser beam with rotating linear polarization can create a vortex-like flow structure and can act as a local flow pump without moving mechanical parts. The work could be used for advanced microfluidic applications, possibly by creating custom microfluidic pathways without predefined channels based on the adaptivity of an optical set-up, with a far reaching unconventional idea to realize channel-less microfluidics.

Polarization-stiffened ferroelectric liquid crystals: a thickness-independent bistable switching voltage with a lower limit of about 2 V and the transition to thresholdless switching

Typical ferroelectric Sm-C(*) liquid crystal (FLC) cells exhibit a voltage threshold for switching from one stable state to another despite the FLC's response being inherently continuous and thresholdless (free rotation of the director around the tilt cone). This switching threshold is due to FLC-surface interactions and to the chevron smectic structure commonly formed in cells. It is shown here that the FLC electrostatic energy contribution ∼P(S)(2) responsible for thresholdless switching of high-P(S) FLCs also plays a key role in the bistable switching of lower-P(S) FLCs. Among the consequences are that it can be difficult to lower a cell's threshold below V(TB)∼3.4(B/ɛ(F))(1/2) (B and ɛ(F) are the FLC's elastic and dielectric constants), that a cell's threshold becomes independent of cell thickness once it substantially exceeds the characteristic length ξ(P)=(ɛ(F)B)(1/2)/P(S), and that there are conditions under which alignment layer capacitance can decrease rather than increase the threshold (i.e., transition to thresholdless switching). A model that predicts and explains these behaviors is presented along with threshold measurements of representative FLC cells.

Transport of particles in liquid crystals

Colloidal particles in a liquid crystal (LC) behave very differently from their counterparts in isotropic fluids. Elastic nature of the orientational order and surface anchoring of the director cause long-range anisotropic interactions and lead to the phenomenon of levitation. The LC environment enables new mechanisms of particle transport that are reviewed in this work. Among them the motion of particles caused by gradients of the director, and effects in the electric field: backflow powered by director reorientations, dielectrophoresis in LC with varying dielectric permittivity and LC-enabled nonlinear electrophoresis with velocity that depends on the square of the applied electric field and can be directed differently from the field direction.

Electromigration of microspheres in ferroelectric smectic liquid crystals

When an electric field is applied to microspheres which are dispersed in a ferroelectric smectic liquid crystal, particle translation along the smectic layer plane, i.e., in a direction nearly perpendicular to that of the director, can be observed. Under certain electric field conditions the translation is shown to be linear in time. We have determined the stability regime of linear particle displacement in the parameter space of amplitude and frequency for various applied wave forms. This regime enlarges for increasing electric field amplitude and frequency, with a threshold behavior observed for small parameters. The upper stability boundary is related to the reciprocal ferroelectric switching time. The microspheres translational velocity is independent of the applied electric field amplitude, but increases linearly with applied frequency. The microsphere velocity also increases with increasing temperature, which is indicative of the respective decrease in liquid crystal viscosity. Possible mechanisms of electric-field-induced particle motion are discussed.

Vortex flow in freestanding smectic films driven by elastic relaxation of the c director

We report a simple experiment in freestanding smectic films in which elastic distortions of the c director drive macroscopic flow. The flow field is visualized with tracer particles. Measurements are compared to predictions of a model that employs the coupled dynamic equations for director and velocity fields. Relaxation dynamics depends on the topology of the film center: for defect-free target patterns, shear flow provides the dominating contribution to the c director dynamics. In presence of a central topological defect of strength S = + 1, the influence of flow on the relaxation dynamics is practically negligible, while for a central S = - 1 defect, the influence of vortex flow on the c-director relaxation is roughly twice as large as for the defect-free state.

Microsphere manipulation using ferroelectric liquid crystals

We propose a strategy for a micromanipulation method using SSFLC (surface stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystals). By adjusting the frequency of the applied ac electric field, the surface layers that cannot follow an applied ac electric field are constructed in SSFLC. In addition, by applying a sawtooth wave voltage, net flow along the smectic layer is generated. The flow direction is reversed by changing the polarity of the sawtooth wave. Consequently, the particles dispersed in SSFLC can be driven bidirectionally along the smectic layer. The particle velocity depends on the temperature, amplitude, and frequency of the applied voltage.