Self-organized wrinkling patterns of a liquid crystalline polymer in surface wetting confinement

Soft Matter. 2015 Jun 28;11(24):4788-92. doi: 10.1039/c5sm00694e. Epub 2015 May 14.

Abstract

Self-organized wrinkling patterns of a liquid crystalline polymer, dictated by the chemico-physically anisotropic nature of surface wettability, are demonstrated in confined geometries. The symmetry of the geometrical constraints of the confinement primarily governs the periodic wrinkling patterns of such a polymer in the wetting region. In a circular geometry, the number of the radial domains with multi-fold symmetries is linearly proportional to the radius of the confinement. The physical origin of the wrinkling process comes from the periodic bend-splay distortions through the relaxation of the curvature elasticity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Liquid Crystals / chemistry*
  • Polymers / chemistry*
  • Sorbitol / analogs & derivatives*
  • Sorbitol / chemistry
  • Wettability

Substances

  • Polymers
  • Sorbitol
  • dibenzylidene sorbitol