Research project is (co)funded by the Slovenian Research Agency.
UL Member: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
Code: N1-0336
Project: Shaping domain wall and defect configurations of ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals
Period: 1. 9. 2024 - 31. 8. 2027
Range per year: 1,18 FTE, category: C
Head: Irena Drevenšek Olenik
Research activity: Natural sciences and mathematics
Research Organisations, Researchers and Citations for bibliographic records
Project description:
Discovered in 2017, the ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal (LC) phase has revolutionized soft matter physics and created an explosion of creativity and excitement in the field. Apart from the excitement from a fundamental physics point of view, the nascent research field is also driven by enormous application potential, the extraordinary responsiveness to electric fields enabling new types of piezoelectric energy generator, supercapacitor, electrically driven soft actuators and much more.
The proposed project brings together research groups of three highly complementary senior scientists, one from Luxembourg and two from Slovenia, to explore the new phase in highly interesting configurations that were so far not explored at all. First, we will study the phase in the form of spherical "shells", where the absence of edges and the curvature on the outside and inside is expected to lead to entirely new phenomena. The shell configuration normally imposes a particular type of ordering in LCs that is not allowed or is usually avoided by the ferroelectric nematic LC, and thus will cause a frustration that will certainly lead to a number of interesting phenomena. Second, we expect to localise domain walls in regular arrangements. The resulting structures can be "metamaterials" with exciting and useful electromagnetic and optical properties.
Finally, we plan to make the materials durable by polymerising or polymer-stabilising them, such that they can be handled and manipulated easily, and be applied in devices. We will also explore version of the ferroelectric nematic phase that generates structural colour, which can be tuned continuously from red to violet by applying an electric field. The last phase of the project will be devoted to exploring various avenues of applying the materials created in the framework of the project. Specifically, we target innovative optical materials with applications ranging from telecommunication to anticounterfeiting and track-and trace solutions, energy harvesting and electrically driven soft artificial muscles.
The above described goals will be reached by a synergistic combination of complementary expertise of the three partner groups. The partner groups at the Luxembourg University will be responsible (i) for preparation of materials and (ii) for fabrication of microparticles in spherical or shell form from these materials. The partner groups from University of Ljubljana will be responsible for (i) synchronous spatial mapping of orientational director field and of ferroelectric polarization structure of above-mentioned LC objects by combined linear and nonlinear optical microscopy methods and (ii) for theoretical description and numerical simulations of the observed spatial structures.
