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arXiv 2312.12866cond-mat.soft
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热致液晶中的光响应活性粒子

Light-responsive active particles in a thermotropic liquid crystal

Antonio Tavera-Vázquez, Andrés Córdoba, Sam Rubin, Vincenzo Vitelli, Juan J. de Pablo

AI总结:

本文首次在热致液晶5CB中利用光热Janus粒子诱导局部向列-各向同性相变实现自推进,并通过考虑各向异性粘度和粘弹性的模型解释了不同光强下的粒子运动行为。

摘要:

合成微型游泳器的发展加深了我们对生命系统基本自推进机制的理解。然而,在高度结构化的各向异性介质中进行微观尺度研究的工作仍然很少,例如细菌或细胞受体在具有粘弹性的丝状蛋白或脂质浓溶液中游动的情形。合成液晶(LCs)有潜力作为仿生替代体系,用于研究生命系统的结构与动力学。尽管如此,关于热致液晶的研究主要集中在电泳和磁泳效应上,另有少数研究涉及扩散泳或光驱动的液晶指向矢畸变。据我们所知,本文首次报道了在热致液晶中的自热泳实验。我们的体系由二维受限的Janus粒子组成,粒子分散在5CB中,并在粒子表面和液晶盒表面均具有垂直锚定。Janus粒子带有导电钛涂层,在LED光源照射下被加热,并诱导局部稳态向列相-各向同性相变,从而使粒子沿垂直于液晶指向矢的方向自推进。我们在不同入射光强度下追踪了Janus粒子的运动轨迹。我们建立了一个模型来描述悬浮在向列相液晶中的Janus粒子的均方位移。该模型假设Janus粒子将液晶视为具有体相向列相各向异性粘度的连续介质。此外,模型还考虑了液晶的粘弹性。该模型能够很好地描述实验数据,并且与游泳力大小相关的拟合参数随入射光强度的增加而增大。此外,我们的方法为开发高度结构化的各向异性活性材料平台迈出了重要一步。

英文摘要:

The development of synthetic microswimmers has advanced our understanding of the fundamental self-propelled mechanisms of living systems. However, there are scarce studies at the microscale within highly structured anisotropic media, such as bacteria or cellular receptors that swim in concentrated solutions of filamentous proteins or lipids with viscoelastic properties. Synthetic liquid crystals (LCs) have the potential to serve as biomimetic surrogates to study the structure and dynamics of living systems. Nevertheless, studies on thermotropic LCs have mainly focused on electro and magneto-phoretic effects, with a few others on diffusiophoresis or light-driven distortions of the LC nematic director. To the best of our knowledge, here we report self-thermophoretic experiments on thermotropic LCs for the first time. Our system consists of 2D confined Janus particles in 5CB with homeotropic anchoring on the particle and LC cell surfaces. The Janus particles include a conductive titanium coating that, upon exposure to an LED source, is heated and induces a local steady nematic-isotropic phase transition, leading to the self-propulsion of the particles orthogonally to the LC director. The trajectories of the Janus particles were tracked at different intensities of the applied light. A model is developed to describe the mean-squared displacement of a Janus particle suspended in a nematic LC. The model assumes that the Janus particle feels the LC as a continuum with the anisotropic viscosity of the bulk nematic phase. Moreover, the viscoelasticity of the LC is also considered. The model describes the experimental data well, and the fitting parameter related to the magnitude of the swimming force increases with the intensity of the applied light. Moreover, our approach represents an important step for developing a platform for highly structured anisotropic active materials.

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