3D printing of responsive chiral photonic nanostructures.

ABSTRACT: Finely controlled flow forces in extrusion-based additive manufacturing can be exploited to program the self-assembly of malleable nanostructures in soft materials by integrating bottom-up design into a top-down processing approach. Here, we leverage the processing parameters offered by direct ink-writing (DIW) to reconfigure the photonic chiral nematic liquid crystalline phase in hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) solutions prior to deposition on the writing substrate to direct structural evolution from a particular initial condition. Moreover, we incorporate polyethylene glycol (PEG) into iridescent HPC inks to form a physically cross-linked network capable of inducing kinetic arrest of the cholesteric/chiral pitch at length scales that selectively reflect light throughout the visible spectru

SUBMITTER: George K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10041133 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature