Polymer Processing at Liquid Crystal-Air Interfaces

Fluid interfaces are unique environments for materials processing because, as inherently open systems, they promote dynamic transport from adjoining phases and offer anisotropic structures that give rise to strong directional interactions during assembly. Liquid crystal interfaces add further prospects for producing materials with directed ordering or anisotropic morphology. For example, colloids assembled at liquid crystal-air and liquid crystal-water interfaces have been demonstrated to form a spectrum of superstructures from chains to hexagonal lattices. In this talk, we demonstrate liquid crystal-mediated synthesis and assembly of polymer colloids at liquid crystal-air interfaces. The polymer colloids are produced by polymerization of a methacrylate monomer in a non-reactive liquid crystal. We examine the mechanisms governing the simultaneous colloid growth and assembly. Our results outline design rules to control the nucleation and growth of morphologically enhanced polymer composites by leveraging interfacial phenomena in soft matter.