Name: high-contrast and fast photorheological switching of a twist-bend nematic liquid crystal
Uploaded: 2019-10-31T14:45:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal at JoVE.com

This work was supported by the HAS-JSPS bilateral joint research project. Financial support from grants NKFIH PD 121019 and FK 125134 is acknowledged.

1. Preparation of rubbed surfaces for aligning LC molecules planarly
<ol>
	<li>Prepare clean glass substrates.
	<ol>
		<li>Cut glass substrates using a diamond-based glass cutter (Table of Materials) into small square pieces with averages sizes of 1 cm x 1 cm. Wash them by sonication at 38 kHz or 42 kHz in an alkaline detergent (Table of Materials, diluted in water at a detergent:water volume ratio of 1:3) and rinse with distilled water repeatedly (typically, more than 10x with 5 min o...

<ol>
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As revealed in Figure 1, CB6OABOBu is a photo-responsive material with I, N, TB, and Cry phase sequences upon cooling. Since local ordering of these phases differs significantly, the photo-driven switching of rheological properties is expected to exhibit good viscoelastic contrast. To quantitatively investigate this, photo-rheology measurements were performed.
First, we consider the rheological data measured in the dark (Figure 2<stro...

Smart mechanical materials with the capability to change their viscoelastic properties in response to environmental variation have generated tremendous interest among researchers. Switchability is considered to be the most important material factor, which offers robustness of repetitive mechanical response in living organisms. To date, artificial switchable materials with versatile functions have been designed by utilizing soft matter (i.e., photoresponsive hydrogels1,2,3, polymers4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, liquid crystals [LCs]9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17, pH-responsive micelles18,19,20,21,22, and surfactants23). However, these materials suffer from more than one of the following problems: lack of reversibility, low switching contrast ratio of viscoelasticity, low adaptivity, and slow switching speed. In conventional materials, a tradeoff exists between the switching contrast ratio of viscoelasticity and switching speed; thus, designing materials covering all of these criteria with high performance is challenging. To realize materials with the aforementioned omnicapability, selecting or designing molecules that carry emergent natures of both high fluidity (viscous property) and rigidity (elastic property) is essential.
Liquid crystals are ideal systems with a potentially large number of liquid crystalline and solid phases that can be tuned by molecular design. This allows for self-assembled structures at different length scales in particular LC phases. For example, while high-symmetry nematic LCs (NLCs) exhibit low viscosity and elasticity because of their short-range spatial order, low-symmetry columnar or smectic LCs show high viscosity and elasticity due to one- and two-dimensional long-range periodicities. It is expected that if LC materials can be switched between two phases with large differences in their viscoelastic properties, then a viscoelastic smart material with high performance can be achieved. A few examples have been reported9,10,11,12,13,14,15.
This article demonstrates the preparation of a photorheological LC material with a phase sequence of isotropic (I)-nematic (N)-twist-bend nematic (TB)24-crystal (Cry) upon cooling (and vice versa upon heating), which exhibits fast and reversible viscoelastic switching in response to light. Presented here are the methods for measuring viscoelasticity and an illustration of the microscopic structure-viscoelasticity relationship. Details are described in the representative results and discussion sections.

<table>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>21-401-10</td>
			<td>AS ONE</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Microspatula</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>AL1254</td>
			<td>JSR</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Planar alignment agent for liquid crystals</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>BX53P</td>
			<td>Olympus</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Polarising microscope with transmission/epi-illumination units</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Discovery DSC 25P</td>
			<td>TI instruments</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Photo-DSC equipment</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Glass cutter PRO-1A</td>
			<td>Sankyo</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>A diamond-based glass cutter</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>HS82</td>
			<td>Mettler Toledo</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>hot stage</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>MCR502</td>
			<td>Anton Paar</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>A commercial rheometer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>MRJ-100S</td>
			<td>EHC</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Rubbing machine</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Norland Optical Adhesive 65, 81</td>
			<td>Norland Products</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Photoreactive adhesions</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>OmniCure S2000</td>
			<td>Excelitas Technologies</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>A commericial high-pressure mercury vapor short arc lamp. Maximum 70 mW/cm^2.</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>PILATUS 6M</td>
			<td>Dectris</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Hybrid photon counting detector for X-ray diffraction dectection</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>S1126</td>
			<td>Matsunami Glass</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Glass substrate</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>SC-158H</td>
			<td>EHC</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Spin coater</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>SCAT-20X</td>
			<td>DKS</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Alkaline detergent</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>SLUV-4</td>
			<td>AS ONE</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Low-pressure mercury vapor short arc lamp</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>UV-208</td>
			<td>Technovision</td>
			<td></td>
			<td>Ultraviolet-ozone (UV-O3) cleaner</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

high-contrast and fast photorheological switching of a twist-bend nematic liquid crystal

Smart viscoelastic materials that respond to specific stimuli are one of the most attractive classes of materials important to future technologies, such as on-demand switchable adhesion technologies, actuators, molecular clutches, and nano-/microscopic mass transporters. Recently it was found that through a special solid-liquid transition, rheological properties can exhibit significant changes, thus providing suitable smart viscoelastic materials. However, designing materials with such a property is complex, and forward and backward switching times are usually long. Therefore, it is important to explore new working mechanisms to realize solid-liquid transitions, shorten the switching time, and enhance the contrast of rheological properties during switching. Here, a light-induced crystal-liquid phase transition is observed, which is characterized by means of polarizing light microscopy (POM), photorheometry, photo-differential scanning calorimetry (photo-DSC), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The light-induced crystal-liquid phase transition presents key features such as (1) fast switching of crystal-liquid phases for both forward and backward reactions and (2) a high contrast ratio of viscoelasticity. In the characterization, POM is advantageous in offering information on the spatial distribution of LC molecule orientations, determining the type of liquid crystalline phases appearing in the material, and studying the orientation of LCs. Photorheometry allows measurement of a material&#8217;s rheological properties under light stimuli and can reveal the photorheological switching properties of materials. Photo-DSC is a technique to investigate thermodynamic information of materials in darkness and under light irradiation. Lastly, XRD allows studying of microscopic structures of materials. The goal of this article is to clearly present how to prepare and measure the discussed properties of a photorheological material.

POM images, photorheometric data, photo-DSC data, and XRD intensity profiles were collected in darkness during temperature variation and while shining UV light. Figure 1a,b represents the structure of CB6OABOBu, with its phase sequence and possible conformations optimized by the MM2 forcefield in the modeling program (e.g., ChemBio3D).
When CB6OABOBu is in the trans-state, two energy-plausible conformational states appear, and the twisted conforma...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal at JoVE.com

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal

This protocol demonstrates the preparation of a photorheological material that exhibits a solid phase, various liquid crystalline phases, and an isotropic liquid phase by increasing temperature. Presented here are methods for measuring the structure-viscoelasticity relationship of the material.

Smart viscoelastic materials that respond to specific stimuli are one of the most attractive classes of materials important to future technologies, such ...

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