초록 |
Cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) have a helical superstructure which exhibits selective reflection color due to periodic modulation of refractive index. The reflection color of CLCs highly relies on the shape of the confinement and anchoring boundary. The onion-like shell has a round surface and at least two tangentially anchored boundaries. Thus the spherical confinement is an optimum configuration for the rotation independence optical properties of CLCs. However, it is challenging to form an onion-like spherical shell. Here, we suggest a facile production of an onion-like photonic shell containing CLCs through liquid-liquid phase separation. One phase ternary mixture of a hydrophobic CLCs, co-solvent, and a hydrophilic solvent is emulsified into water stream through a microfluidic method. When the ternary mixture in the single-emulsion drops reaches equilibrium by mass transfer, liquid-liquid phase separation occurs, and onion-like shells are created. |