Co-flow microfluidic synthesis of liquid crystalline actuating Janus particles

A microfluidic synthesis of stimuli-responsive actuating Janus particles composed of a liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) and a polymeric hydrogel is reported. , In this article the microfluidic synthesis and characterization of micrometer sized actuating Janus particles containing a liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) is presented. On one side these Janus particles consist of a hydrophobic liquid crystalline part, featuring strong shape changes during the thermotropic phase transition, whereas the other side contains a hydrophilic polyacrylamide network. The synthesis is based upon the dispersion of two immiscible monomer mixtures in a continuously flowing silicone oil, using two glass capillaries side by side to form Janus microdroplets of different morphologies. Furthermore, the systematic adjustment of the morphology of the Janus particles as well as the optimization of the actuation properties is conducted by precise control and variation of the microfluidic parameters. The actuation properties of the particles are studied by polarized optical microscopy (POM), in which relative length changes up to 52% are investigated for the elongation of LCEs during the phase transition in rod-like Janus particles. Further wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) measurements verify the mesogen's orientation in a bipolar director field, which corresponds to the observed geometry of the Janus particle's shape changes

Untwisting of a cholesteric elastomer by a mechanical field

A mechanical strain field applied to a monodomain cholesteric elastomer will unwind the helical director distribution. There is an analogy with the classical problem of an electric field applied to a cholesteric liquid crystal, but with important differences. Frank elasticity is of minor importance unless the gel is very weak. The interplay is between director anchoring to the rubber elastic matrix and the external mechanical field. Stretching perpendicular to the helix axis induces the uniform unwound state via the elimination of sharp, pinned twist walls above a critical strain. Unwinding through conical director states occurs when the elastomer is stretched along the helical axis.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX 3 style, 3 EPS figure

Stereo-selective swelling of imprinted cholesteric networks

Molecular chirality, and the chiral symmetry breaking of resulting macroscopic phases, can be topologically imprinted and manipulated by crosslinking and swelling of polymer networks. We present a new experimental approach to stereo-specific separation of chiral isomers by using a cholesteric elastomer in which a helical director distribution has been topological imprinted by crosslinking. This makes the material unusual in that is has a strong phase chirality, but no molecular chirality at all; we study the nature and parameters controlling the twist-untwist transition. Adding a racemic mixture to the imprinted network results in selective swelling by only the component of ``correct'' handedness. We investigate the capacity of demixing in a racemic environment, which depends on network parameters and the underlying nematic order

Определение эффективности нейтронного детектора из пластического сцинтиллятора o100?200 мм

Рассчитывается и экспериментально проверяется эффективность детектора. к нейтронам сверхвысоких (десятки и сотни МэВ) энергий

Electro-Mechanical Fredericks Effects in Nematic Gels

The solid nematic equivalent of the Fredericks transition is found to depend on a critical field rather than a critical voltage as in the classical case. This arises because director anchoring is principally to the solid rubbery matrix of the nematic gel rather than to the sample surfaces. Moreover, above the threshold field, we find a competition between quartic (soft) and conventional harmonic elasticity which dictates the director response. By including a small degree of initial director misorientation, the calculated field variation of optical anisotropy agrees well with the conoscopy measurements of Chang et al (Phys.Rev.E56, 595, 1997) of the electro-optical response of nematic gels.Comment: Latex (revtex style), 5 EPS figures, submitted to PRE, corrections to discussion of fig.3, cosmetic change

Colloidal Nanoplatelet/Conducting Polymer Hybrids: Excitonic and Material Properties

Here we present the first account of conductive polymer/colloidal nanoplatelet hybrids. For this, we developed DEH-PPV-based polymers with two different anchor groups (sulfide and amine) acting as surfactants for CdSe nanoplatelets, which are atomically flat semiconductor nanocrystals. Hybridization of the polymers with the nanoplatelets in the solution phase was observed to cause strong photoluminescence quenching in both materials. Through steady-state photoluminescence and excitation spectrum measurements, photoluminescence quenching was shown to result from dominant exciton dissociation through charge transfer at the polymer/nanoplatelet interfaces that possess a staggered (i.e., type II) band alignment. Importantly, we found out that sulfide-based anchors enable a stronger emission quenching than amine-based ones, suggesting that the sulfide anchors exhibit more efficient binding to the nanoplatelet surfaces. Also, shorter surfactants were found to be more effective for exciton dissociation as compared to the longer ones. In addition, we show that nanoplatelets are homogeneously distributed in the hybrid films owing to the functional polymers. These nanocomposites can be used as building blocks for hybrid optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells. © 2016 American Chemical Society

Extraordinary Performance of Carbon-Coated Anatase TiO2 as Sodium-Ion Anode

The synthesis of in situ polymer-functionalized anatase TiO2 particles using an anchoring block copolymer with hydroxamate as coordinating species is reported, which yields nanoparticles (≈11 nm) in multigram scale. Thermal annealing converts the polymer brushes into a uniform and homogeneous carbon coating as proven by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The strong impact of particle size as well as carbon coating on the electrochemical performance of anatase TiO2 is demonstrated. Downsizing the particles leads to higher reversible uptake/release of sodium cations per formula unit TiO2 (e.g., 0.72 eq. Na+ (11 nm) vs only 0.56 eq. Na+ (40 nm)) while the carbon coating improves rate performance. The combination of small particle size and homogeneous carbon coating allows for the excellent electrochemical performance of anatase TiO2 at high (134 mAh g−1 at 10 C (3.35 A g−1)) and low (≈227 mAh g−1 at 0.1 C) current rates, high cycling stability (full capacity retention between 2nd and 300th cycle at 1 C) and improved coulombic efficiency (≈99.8%)

Symmetries and Elasticity of Nematic Gels

A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all underlying symmetries. After reviewing traditional elasticity and clarifying the role of broken rotational symmetries in both the reference space of points in the undistorted medium and the target space into which these points are mapped, we explore the unusual properties of nematic gels from a number of perspectives. We show how symmetries of nematic gels formed via spontaneous symmetry breaking from an isotropic gel enforce soft elastic response characterized by the vanishing of a shear modulus and the vanishing of stress up to a critical value of strain along certain directions. We also study the phase transition from isotropic to nematic gels. In addition to being fully consistent with approaches to nematic gels based on rubber elasticity, our description has the important advantages of being independent of a microscopic model, of emphasizing and clarifying the role of broken symmetries in determining elastic response, and of permitting easy incorporation of spatial variations, thermal fluctuations, and gel heterogeneity, thereby allowing a full statistical-mechanical treatment of these novel materials.Comment: 21 pages, 4 eps figure

Tuning the cross-linking density and cross-linker in core cross-linked polymeric micelles and its effects on the particle stability in human blood plasma and mice

Core cross-linked polymeric micelles (CCPMs) are designed to improve the therapeutic profile of hydrophobic drugs, reduce or completely avoid protein corona formation, and offer prolonged circulation times, a prerequisite for passive or active targeting. In this study, we tuned the CCPM stability by using bifunctional or trifunctional cross-linkers and varying the cross-linkable polymer block length. For CCPMs, amphiphilic thiol-reactive polypept(o)ides of polysarcosine-block-poly(S-ethylsulfonyl-l-cysteine) [pSar-b-pCys(SO2Et)] were employed. While the pCys(SO2Et) chain lengths varied from Xn = 17 to 30, bivalent (derivatives of dihydrolipoic acid) and trivalent (sarcosine/cysteine pentapeptide) cross-linkers have been applied. Asymmetrical flow field-flow fraction (AF4) displayed the absence of aggregates in human plasma, yet for non-cross-linked PM and CCPMs cross-linked with dihydrolipoic acid at [pCys(SO2Et)]17, increasing the cross-linking density or the pCys(SO2Et) chain lengths led to stable CCPMs. Interestingly, circulation time and biodistribution in mice of non-cross-linked and bivalently cross-linked CCPMs are comparable, while the trivalent peptide cross-linkers enhance the circulation half-life from 11 to 19 h.Biopharmaceutic