文献类型：期刊文献

英文题名：Diffusionless transformation of soft cubic superstructure from amorphous to simple cubic and body-centered cubic phases

作者：Liu, Jie[1,2];Liu, Wenzhe[3,4];Guan, Bo[5];Wang, Bo[3,4];Shi, Lei[3,4];Jin, Feng[1];Zheng, Zhigang[6];Wang, Jingxia[1,2];Ikeda, Tomiki[1];Jiang, Lei[1,2]

机构：[1]Chinese Acad Sci, Tech Inst Phys & Chem, CAS Key Lab Bioinspired Mat & Interfaces Sci, Beijing, Peoples R China;[2]Univ Chinese Acad Sci, Sch Future Technol, Ctr Mat Sci & Optoelect Engn, Beijing, Peoples R China;[3]Fudan Univ, Dept Phys, Key Lab Microand Nanophoton Struct, Shanghai, Peoples R China;[4]Fudan Univ, State Key Lab Surface Phys, Shanghai, Peoples R China;[5]Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Chem, Beijing, Peoples R China;[6]East China Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Phys, Shanghai, Peoples R China

年份：2021

卷号：12

期号：1

外文期刊名：NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

收录：;WOS:【SCI-EXPANDED(收录号:WOS:000664874700008)】；

基金：We are grateful for the financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0200803, 2017YFA0204504, 2016YFB0402004, 2016YFA0301100, 2016YFA0302000, and 2018YFA0306201), NSFC (Grant No. 51873221, 52073292, 51673207, 51673208,61822504, 51873060, 91963212, 11774063 and 11727811), the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (Z181100004418012), Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dutch research project (1A111KYSB20190072), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grants No. 17ZR1442300 and No. 17142200100) and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (2182079). We thank Prof. Guang Mo, the member of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, for assistance with Syn-SAXS testing by the 1W2A SAXS beamline at the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

语种：英文

摘要：In a narrow temperature window in going from the isotropic to highly chiral orders, cholesteric liquid crystals exhibit so-called blue phases, consisting of different morphologies of long, space-filling double twisted cylinders. Those of cubic spatial symmetry have attracted considerable attention in recent years as templates for soft photonic materials. The latter often requires the creation of monodomains of predefined orientation and size, but their engineering is complicated by a lack of comprehensive understanding of how blue phases nucleate and transform into each other at a submicrometer length scale. In this work, we accomplish this by intercepting nucleation processes at intermediate stages with fast cross-linking of a stabilizing polymer matrix. We reveal using transmission electron microscopy, synchrotron small-angle X-ray diffraction, and angle-resolved microspectroscopy that the grid of double-twisted cylinders undergoes highly coordinated, diffusionless transformations. In light of our findings, the implementation of several applications is discussed, such as temperature-switchable QR codes, micro-area lasing, and fabrication of blue phase liquid crystals with large domain sizes. The arrangements of defect lines in liquid crystal blue phases provide promising templates for photonic crystals. Here Liu et al. investigate in detail how inter-phase transitions proceed, by intercepting nucleation with on-demand cross linking of a supporting polymer matrix.