jz8b01866_si_001.pdf (924.43 kB)
From Chaos to Order: Evaporative Assembly and Collective Behavior in Drying Liquid Crystal Droplets
journal contribution
posted on 2018-08-07, 00:00 authored by Guang Chu, Eyal ZussmanThe
emergence of dynamic assembly and collective motion in living
systems are marvels of nature that suggest universal principles for
governing self-organization. By drying a drop of surfactant-stabilized
liquid crystal emulsions, we present a simple form of evaporative
assembly and collective motion in colloidal droplets. Driven by local
evaporation flux distribution and capillary force, the dynamic mode
in these swimming liquid crystal droplets highly depends on their
intrinsic configurations, exhibiting a macroscopic transition from
chaotic to well-organized. The combination of collective behavior,
speed distribution, interparticle interaction, formation of topological
defects and dislocations in a swarm of hexagonal ordered liquid crystal
droplets produced a myriad of dynamical states, which suggest a means
of mimicking the nonequilibrium state of living matter with controlled
properties.