Nonsphere Drop Impact Assembly of Graphene Oxide Liquid Crystals Qiuyan Yang Yanqiu Jiang Dongyu Fan Kan Zheng Jiayi Zhang Zhen Xu Weiquan Yao Qingxu Zhang Yihu Song Qiang Zheng Liwu Fan Weiwei Gao Chao Gao 10.1021/acsnano.9b03926.s002 https://acs.figshare.com/articles/media/Nonsphere_Drop_Impact_Assembly_of_Graphene_Oxide_Liquid_Crystals/8864753 Creating long-lived topological textured liquid crystals (LCs) in confined nonspherical space is of significance in both generations of structures and fundamental studies of topological physics. However, it remains a great challenge due to the fluid character of LCs and the unstable tensional state of transient nonspheres. Here, we realize a rich series of topological textures confined in nonspherical geometries by drop impact assembly (DIA) of graphene oxide (GO) aqueous LCs. Various highly curved nonspherical morphologies of LCs were captured by gelator bath, generating distinct out-of-equilibrium yet long-lived macroscopic topological textures in 3D confinement. Our hydrodynamic investigations on DIA processes reveal that the shear-thinning fluid behavior of LCs and the arrested GO alignments mainly contribute to the topological richness in DIA. Utilizing the shaping behavior of GO LCs compared to other conventional linear polymers such as alginate, we further extend the DIA methodology to design more complex yet highly controllable functional composites and hybrids. This work thus reveals the potential to scale production of uniform yet anisotropic materials with rich topologic textures and tailored composition. 2019-07-10 00:00:00 anisotropic materials DIA processes fluid character Impact Assembly Graphene Oxide Liquid Crystals LC topologic textures topological textures DIA methodology graphene oxide topological richness nonspherical space nonspherical morphologies topological physics 3 D confinement scale production drop impact assembly nonspherical geometries macroscopic topological textures shear-thinning fluid behavior gelator bath hydrodynamic investigations