Hybrid molecular-colloidal liquid crystals

Abstract

Finding order in twos In nematic liquid crystals, the local orientation of the molecules hovers around an average direction. The orientational control bestows unusual optical properties. In theory, with the right sort of two-dimensional shape, it should be possible to create nematics with biaxial ordering, but this has proven elusive. Mundoor et al. dispersed colloidal rods into a nematic solvent (see the Perspective by Poulin). Within a range of temperature and concentration, the rods ordered orthogonally to the solvent molecules, thus giving the mixture the type of properties that one would expect from a biaxial liquid crystal. Science , this issue p. 768 ; see also p. 712