Controlling Gaussian and mean curvatures at microscale by sublimation and condensation of smectic liquid crystals.

ABSTRACT: Soft materials with layered structure such as membranes, block copolymers and smectics exhibit intriguing morphologies with nontrivial curvatures. Here, we report restructuring the Gaussian and mean curvatures of smectic A films with free surface in the process of sintering, that is, reshaping at elevated temperatures. The pattern of alternating patches of negative, zero and positive mean curvature of the air-smectic interface has a profound effect on the rate of sublimation. As a result of sublimation, condensation and restructuring, initially equilibrium smectic films with negative and zero Gaussian curvature are transformed into structures with pronounced positive Gaussian curvature of layers packing, which are rare in the samples obtained by cooling from the isotropic melt. The observe

SUBMITTER: Kim DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4725769 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature