Liquid Crystals for the Low Carbon Future

Self assembly in soft matter systems such as liquid crystals and colloids leads to a variety of useful and interesting behaviors. Recently, novel templating methods have been used to copy such structures and induce novel behaviour, such as wide-temperature photonic structures for use in printable lasers, and high Kerr effect materials for use in fast display modes for television applications.

As an important part of the low-carbon future, battery technology is an important and potentially lucrative area for research. This proposal will investigate templating of both columnar and smectic liquid crystals for the creation of ion-channels in polymer electrolytes for novel batteries. A variety of characterisation techniques will be used, including dielectric analysis, cryo-SEM and voltammetry. The use of composites will also be explored, including graphene oxide flakes and carbon nanotubes.

Also to be explored is the use of disclinations in nematic liquid crystals as ion channels for novel electronic devices. These defects can be controlled by careful manipulation of the surface structure in liquid crystal devices. It is envisaged that defect networks can be reconfigured using electrical and optical switching methods, to form novel electronic devices.