SONS EUROCORES: Proposal 05-SONS-FP-014 Liquid Crystal Nanoparticles - LC-NANOP

液晶(LCS)是现代典型的自组织分子材料。它们可以很容易地在电、磁和机械领域重新定位，导致了过多的应用，例如，导致了电光显示器市场的主导地位。大多数LCD都被设计成用于显示器的低摩尔质量材料(例如4-烷基-4‘-氰基联苯)或用于高屈服强度聚合物的高分子量材料(例如芳纶TM和VectraTM)。与现有材料相比，纳米结构液晶可以将自组织与形成二级和三级结构的能力结合起来，其结构层次类似于蛋白质的结构层次。此外，超分子和超分子液晶显示出各种物理性质，在纳米科学、材料和生物领域具有广泛的应用前景。我们预测，未来液晶的材料研究和应用将集中在各种令人兴奋的主题上，这些主题反映了我们控制复杂/巨型分子系统的自组织、自组装和微观分离过程的能力，以产生可寻址的、自组织的纳米结构。材料本身将是具有智能且往往是多功能特征的属性设计和合成。它们的应用将跨越国界，从先进的技术设备到智能生物材料/传感器，甚至到物质的新状态的发现。预见到这些令人兴奋的发展，我们打算在自下而上的方法中利用液晶的独特的自组织能力来创建有序的纳米粒子阵列，而不是目前使用的自我限制的自上而下的方法(例如纳米光刻)。通过采用这种方法，我们将能够制备具有特定内置功能的分级杂化结构的液晶纳米粒子。该计划的主要挑战是具有内置功能的超分子和超分子材料的合理设计、合成(纯和/或放大)和表征，这些材料将自组织和/或自组装，以产生具有实际意义的新材料或状态。因此，在模拟的帮助下，液晶纳米颗粒将被设计成纳米颗粒(例如，倍半硅氧烷、碳硅烷金、银、二氧化钛、病毒和孢子等)的形式作为中心支架，并且其中支架可以是多层的。支架周围是一层液晶涂层，它可能来自球形、圆盘状或棒状的介晶单元。外部涂层可以由一个或多个介晶层组成，这些介晶层又可以容纳更多的功能单元(例如光致变色)。然而，介晶涂层的特定目的是为核心纳米粒子提供自组织并最终自组装的载体。如上所述，虽然显示为球形，但脚手架不一定是球形的。此外，它们可以被设计成在其结构中具有孔和腔，从而允许形成离子通道和结合位置

Liquid crystals (LCs) are the quintessential, self-organising, molecular materials of the modern era. The ease with which they can be reoriented in electrical, magnetic and mechanical fields has led to a plethora of applications, resulting, for example, in the dominance of the electro-optic displays market. Most LCs have been designed as either low molar-weight materials for displays (eg 4-alkyl-4'-cyanobiphenyls) or high molecular-weight materials for high yield-strength polymers (eg KevlarTM, and VectraTM). In contrast to existing materials, nano-structured LCs can combine self-organisation with the ability to form secondary and tertiary structures, in a structural hierarchy similar to that found for proteins. Furthermore, super- and supra-molecular LCs can exhibit a variety of physical properties which make them attractive for applications in the fields of nano-science, materials and biology. We predict that future materials research and applications of LCs will be focused on a variety of exciting topics, which reflect our ability to control self-organising, self-assembling and micro-segregating processes of complex/giant molecular systems to yield addressable, self-organised nano-structures. The materials themselves will be property designed and synthesised with smart and often multifunctional characteristics. Their applications will spread across the boundaries from advanced technological devices through to smart bio-materials/sensors, even to the discovery of new states of matter . Anticipating such exciting developments, we intend to utilise the unique self-organising abilities of LCs in a bottom-up approach to the creation of ordered arrays of nano-particles, rather than the currently used, but self-limiting, top-down methodologies (eg nanolithography). In taking this approach, we will be able to prepare liquid-crystalline nano-particles with hierarchical hybrid structures with specific built-in functionality. The primary challenges in this programme are the rational design, synthesis (pure and/or with up-scaling) and characterization of super- and supra-molecular materials with in-built functionalities, which will self-organise and/or self-assemble in order to yield novel materials or states of matter of practical importance. Thus, the liquid-crystalline nano-particles will be designed, with the aid of simulations, in the form of a nano-particle (eg, silsesquioxanes, carbosilanes gold, silver, titania, viruses and spores etc) as the central scaffold, and where the scaffold may be multilayered. Surrounding the scaffold is a liquid-crystalline coat , which may be derived from spherical, disc- or rod-like mesogenic units. The external coat may consist of one or more mesogenic layers, which in turn can accommodate further functional units (eg photochromic). The mesogenic coat, however, has the specific purpose of providing the self-organising, and ultimately self-assembling, vehicle for the core nano-particles. As noted although shown as spherical, the scaffolds do not necessary have to be spherical. Furthermore, they can be designed to have holes and cavities within their structures, thereby allowing formation of ion channels and binding sites