%0 Journal Article
%A Garlea, Ioana C.
%A Dammone, Oliver
%A Alvarado, Jose
%A Nooteboom, Valerie
%A Jia, Yunfei
%A Koenderink, Gijsje H.
%A Aarts, Dirk G. A. L.
%A Lettinga, M. P.
%A Mulder, Bela M.
%T Colloidal Liquid Crystals Confinedto Synthetic Tactoids
%J Scientific reports
%V 9
%@ 2045-2322
%C [London]
%I Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
%M FZJ-2020-00035
%P 20391
%D 2019
%X When a liquid crystal forming particles are confined to a spatial volume with dimensions comparable to that of their own size, they face a complex trade-off between their global tendency to align and the local constraints imposed by the boundary conditions. This interplay may lead to a non-trivial orientational patterns that strongly depend on the geometry of the confining volume. This novel regime of liquid crystalline behavior can be probed with colloidal particles that are macro-aggregates of biomolecules. Here we study director fields of filamentous fd-viruses in quasi-2D lens-shaped chambers that mimic the shape of tactoids, the nematic droplets that form during isotropic-nematic phase separation. By varying the size and aspect ratio of the chambers we force these particles into confinements that vary from circular to extremely spindle-like shapes and observe the director field using fluorescence microscopy. In the resulting phase diagram, next to configurations predicted earlier for 3D tactoids, we find a number of novel configurations. Using Monte Carlo Simulations, we show that these novel states are metastable, yet long-lived. Their multiplicity can be explained by the co-existence of multiple dynamic relaxation pathways leading to the final stable states
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%$ pmid:31892707
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000508985300012
%R 10.1038/s41598-019-56729-9
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/868441