Comparison of the anchoring of nematic liquid crystals on self-assembled monolayers formed from semifluorinated thiols and alkanethiols

Autor: William J. Miller, Nicholas L. Abbott, Mei-Wei Tsao, Vinay Gupta, John F. Rabolt
Rok vydání: 1997
Předmět:
Zdroj: Liquid Crystals. 23:175-184
ISSN: 1366-5855
0267-8292
DOI: 10.1080/026782997208424
Popis: The anchoring of nematic liquid crystals on self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) formed by the chemisorption of semifluorinated thiols or alkanethiols on gold is compared and contrasted. The planar anchoring of 4-n-pentyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) observed in the past on SAMs formed from alkanethiols is also observed on SAMs formed from semifluorinated thiols. The azimuthal anchoring of 5CB, however, differs on these two types of surfaces: nematic 5CB anchored on SAMs formed from alkanethiols has a grainy appearance due to the formation of domains with sizes 10 mum whereas 5CB forms large domains (100 mum) with diffuse branches emerging from defects of strength 1/2 when anchored on SAMs formed from semifluorinated thiols. Mixed (two-component) SAMs formed from either short and long semifluorinated thiols or short and long alkanethiols cause homeotropic anchoring of 5CB. We discuss these results in light of the known differences in the structure of SAMs formed from alkanethiols and semifluorinated thiols, i.e. the...
Databáze: OpenAIRE