Liquid Crystalline Nanorods by Synchronized Polymerization, Self-Assembly and Oriented Attachment for Utilization in Magnetically Responsive Displays

The creation of anisotropic nanoparticles (NPs) by polymerization and/or self-assembly (SA) has significantly promoted the applications of polymer nanomaterials in many fields. However, polymer nanorods are not easily accessible via conventional polymerization or SA. Here we report a one-step route to synthesize single-domain smectic liquid crystalline (LC) nanorods utilizing oriented attachment (OA) that was usually found in the synthesis of inorganic NPs, synchronized with polymerization and SA. The synchronization was achieved by developing a novel stabilizer derived from a thermo-responsive polyelectrolyte system. Mechanistic studies reveal that controlling the thermo-responsive behavior and the distribution of stabilizers on NPs enabled OA. The LC nanorods can further form hierarchical colloidal LCs, which show much larger light transmittance than that of non-LC nanorods. Moreover, we demonstrate that this LC system can be manipulated by an external magnetic field, thus providing a candidate material for magnetic-responsive display.