Liquid-crystalline colloidal particles

Here we report about the synthesis of colloidal particles of nematic and smectic liquid-crystalline polymers. For this purpose mesogen-containing acrylate monomers were synthesized and polymerized in a special modification of a precipitation polymerization called dispersion polymerization. By variation of the polymerization conditions colloidal particles of different size and polydispersity could be obtained including very narrowly distributed samples in optimized batches. On azobenzene-containing colloidal particles switching experiments with polarized light were performed. It could be observed that the nematic director of the mesogens within the colloidal particles can be rotated due to the photochemical trans-cis-isomerization of the azobenzene chromophores.