Light‐Patterned Crystallographic Direction of a Self‐Organized 3D Soft Photonic Crystal |
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| Authors: | Zhi‐Gang Zheng Cong‐Long Yuan Wei Hu Hari Krishna Bisoyi Ming‐Jie Tang Zhen Liu Pei‐Zhi Sun Wei‐Qiang Yang Xiao‐Qian Wang Dong Shen Yannian Li Fangfu Ye Yan‐Qing Lu Guoqiang Li Quan Li |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Physics, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China;2. Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA;3. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China;4. Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;5. Visual and Biomedical Optics Lab, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA |
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| Abstract: | Uniform and patterned orientation of a crystallographic direction of ordered materials is of fundamental significance and of great interest for electronic and photonic applications. However, such orientation control is generally complicated and challenging with regard to inorganic and organic crystalline materials due to the occurrence of uncontrollable dislocations or defects. Achieving uniform lattice orientation in frustrated liquid‐crystalline phases, like cubic blue phases, is a formidable task. Taming and tailoring the ordering of such soft, cubic lattices along predetermined or desired directions, and even imparting a prescribed pattern on lattice orientation, are more challenging, due to the entropy‐domination attribute of soft matter. Herein, we disclose a facile way to realize designed micropatterning of a crystallographic direction of a soft, cubic liquid‐crystal superstructure, exhibiting an alternate uniform and random orientation of the lattice crystallographic direction enabled by a photoalignment technique. Because of the rewritable trait of the photoalignment film, the pattern can be erased and rewritten on‐demand by light. Such an oriented soft lattice sensitively responds to various external stimuli such as temperature, electric field, and light irradiation. Furthermore, advanced reflective photonic applications are achieved based on the patterned crystallographic orientation of the cubic blue phase, soft lattice. |
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| Keywords: | 3D photonic crystals crystallographic directions photoalignment self‐organized cubic superstructures stimuli‐responsive |
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