Fabrication of patterned nanofibers using liquid crystal template controlled by electric fields

Abstract

Liquid crystals (LCs) have been employed to derive tunable physical properties that arise dynamically from their intrinsic properties in response to external stimuli, which can serve as templates for aligning functional guest materials. One of the ways to use liquid crystal templates is to grow oriented polymers by aligning monomers. We fabricate patterned fiber arrays in electrically modulated nematic liquid crystal molds using a chemical vapor deposition polymerization (CVP) method. Under an electric field, the induced fault structure with the number of turns $-1/2$ contains periodic zigzag displacement lines. It is known that liquid crystal defect structures can trap guest materials such as particles and chemicals. However, the resulting fibers grow along the liquid crystal orientation rather than being trapped in defects. To demonstrate the versatility of our platform, nanofibers were fabricated at different scales with patterned electrodes representing the alphabet letters “CVP”. Additionally, semi-fluorinated moieties were added to the fibers to create a hydrophobic surface, and it was confirmed that patterned fiber arrays can improve both the hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties of the surface. The resulting orientation-controlled fibers are used in controllable smart surfaces that can be used in sensors, electronics, photonics, and biomimetic surfaces.