In the 21st century, soft materials will become more important as functional materials because of their dynamic nature. Although soft materials are not as highly durable as hard materials, such as metals, ceramics, and engineering plastics, they can respond well to stimuli and the environment. The introduction of order into soft materials induces new dynamic functions. Liquid crystals are ordered soft materials consisting of self-organized molecules and can potentially be used as new functional materials for electron, ion, or molecular transporting, sensory, catalytic, optical, and bio-active materials. For this functionalization, unconventional materials design is required. Herein, we describe new approaches to the functionalization of liquid crystals and show how the design of liquid crystals formed by supramolecular assembly and nano-segregation leads to the formation of a variety of new self-organized functional materials.

Functional liquid-crystalline assemblies: self-organized soft materials.

The photopolymerization of mixtures of multifunctional thiols and enes is an efficient method for the rapid production of films and thermoset plastics with unprecedented physical and mechanical properties. One of the major obstacles in traditional free-radical photopolymerization is essentially eliminated in thiol–ene polymerizations because the polymerization occurs in air almost as rapidly as in an inert atmosphere. Virtually any type of ene will participate in a free-radical polymerization process with a multifunctional thiol. Hence, it is possible to tailor materials with virtually any combination of properties required for a particular application. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 5301–5338, 2004

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pola.20366

Thiol–enes: Chemistry of the past with promise for the future

This Review summarizes recent developments in the field of responsive photonic crystal structures, including principles for design and fabrication and many strategies for applications, for example as optical switches or chemical and biological sensors. A number of fabrication methods are now available to realize responsive photonic structures, the majority of which rely on self-assembly processes to achieve ordering. Compared with microfabrication techniques, self-assembly approaches have lower processing costs and higher production efficiency, however, major efforts are still needed to further develop such approaches. In fact, some emerging techniques such as spin coating, magnetic assembly, and flow-induced self-assembly have already shown great promise in overcoming current challenges. When designing new systems with improved performance, it is always helpful to bear in mind the lessons learnt from natural photonic structures.

Responsive photonic crystals.

An overview on the recent developments in the field of liquid crystalline bent-core molecules (so-called banana liquid crystals) is given. After some basic issues, dealing with general aspects of the systematisation of the mesophases, development of polar order and chirality in this class of LC systems and explaining some general structure–property relationships, we focus on fascinating new developments in this field, such as modulated, undulated and columnar phases, so-called B7 phases, phase biaxiality, ferroelectric and antiferroelectric polar order in smectic and columnar phases, amplification and switching of chirality and the spontaneous formation of superstructural and supramolecular chirality.

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Bent-core liquid crystals: polar order, superstructural chirality and spontaneous desymmetrisation in soft matter systems

This Review covers photonic crystals (PhCs) and their use for sensing mainly chemical and biochemical parameters, with a particular focus on the materials applied. Specific sections are devoted to a) a lead-in into natural and synthetic photonic nanoarchitectures, b) the various kinds of structures of PhCs, c) reflection and diffraction in PhCs, d) aspects of sensing based on mechanical, thermal, optical, electrical, magnetic, and purely chemical stimuli, e) aspects of biosensing based on biomolecules incorporated into PhCs, and f) current trends and limitations of such sensors.

Photonic Crystals for Chemical Sensing and Biosensing

Mirrorless Lasing in a Dye‐Doped Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal

Electric Field Tuning of the Stop Band in a Liquid-Crystal-Infiltrated Polymer Inverse Opal

Electro‐Tunable Liquid‐Crystal Laser

Laser action in a waveguide configuration has been demonstrated in a planar alignment cell of dye-doped chiral smectic liquid-crystal mixtures with a short pitch helical structure. In this configuration, doped dye can effectively be excited by a pump beam illuminating perpendicularly the helical axis and the laser light emitted along the helical axis propagates in the waveguide. Lasing wavelength can be tuned by adjusting the periodicity of the helical pitch upon applying the electric field.

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Electrically tunable waveguide laser based on ferroelectric liquid crystal

Tunability of optical properties such as transmission and reflection by temperature and applied voltage has been demonstrated in synthetic opals and inverse opals like three-dimensional photonic crystals infiltrated with liquid crystals, conjugated molecules and polymers, in accordance with theoretical calculation. A new type of tunability based on uncoupled mode in a two-dimensional photonic band gap influenced by the field-dependent anisotropy in liquid crystals has also been demonstrated theoretically. Spectral narrowing and lasing have been observed in these opals infiltrated with conducting polymers and fluorescent dyes like three-dimensional photonic crystal and fluorescent dye-doped cholesteric and ferroelectric liquid crystal as one-dimensional photonic crystal. These lasing wavelength can be controlled by the applied voltage. Laser emission was also realized with conducting polymer on a surface relief grating formed on an azo-polymer film by interference optical beam.

Masahiro Kasano

Papers

Mirrorless Lasing in a Dye‐Doped Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal

Electric Field Tuning of the Stop Band in a Liquid-Crystal-Infiltrated Polymer Inverse Opal

Electro‐Tunable Liquid‐Crystal Laser

Electrically tunable waveguide laser based on ferroelectric liquid crystal

Novel tunable optical properties of liquid crystals, conjugated molecules and polymers in nanoscale periodic structures as photonic crystals