Tailoring the Surface of Liquid Crystal Droplets by The Self-Assembly of Supramolecular Surfactants for Sensor Applications

该提案将研究在液晶材料（5CB）液滴外部的溶液中目标胆汁酸的存在是否会引发液晶结构中的径向到双极转变，然后可以简单地通过偏振光显微镜检测。如果成功的话，这种检测胆汁酸的方法比现有技术容易得多，可能会在更偏远的地方使用，那里没有复杂的分析工具。

This proposal will investigate whether the presence of target bile acids in a solution outside a droplet of liquid crystalline material (5CB) will trigger a radial-to-bipolar transition in the structure of the liquid crystal, which can then be detected simply by polarized light microscopy. If successful, this method of detecting bile acids is much easier than existing technique and might be employed in more remote locations where sophisticated analytical tools are not available.