Robust Chiral Organization of Cellulose Nanocrystals in Capillary Confinement

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02522
• Publication Date: 2018-10-24T04:49:58Z
• Authors: V. Cherpak; V. F. Korolovych; R. Geryak; T. Turiv; D. Nepal; J. Kelly; T. J. Bunning; O. D. Lavrentovich; W. T. Heller; V. V. Tsukruk
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology

We showed large area uniformly aligned chiral photonic bioderived films from a liquid crystal phase formed by cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) suspension placed in thin capillary. As result of the spatial confinement drying process, interface between coexisting isotropic and phases aligns perpendicular to long axis This orientation facilitates fast homogeneous growth pseudolayers parallel interface. Overall, formation organized solids takes hours vs weeks contrast slow heterogeneous process traditional dish-cast approach. The saturation water vapor one end capillary causes anisotropic promotes unidirectional propagation regions that results CNC solid with oriented layered morphology. Corresponding ordering processes were monitored situ at nanoscale, mesoscale, microscopic scale complementary scattering techniques. resulting show high order multilength over preserved handedness causing narrower optical reflectance band uniform birefringence macroscopic those assembled magnetic field on porous substrates. These controllable well-identified morphology, structural colors, open up interesting possibilities for broad applications nanomaterials.