Programming van der Waals interactions with complex symmetries into microparticles using liquid crystallinity
Versatile approaches to engineer asymmetric van der Waals interactions can expand the palette of materials development through bottom-up engineering processes. In a new study, H.A. Fuster and a research team in chemical and biological engineering, and mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, and Cornell University New York, U.S., demonstrated the polymerization of liquid crystals (LC) to program van der Waals interactions. They performed the experiments using a kinetically controlled probe colloid adsorption process and conducted complementary calculations to indicate that LC ordering could program van der Waals interactions across the surfaces of microparticles. They engineered the diverse LC configurations by confinement to provide fresh ideas in order to program van der Waals interactions, to assemble soft matter. The results are now published on Science Advances.