Thermo-sensitive discotic colloidal liquid crystals.

We fabricated for the first time thermo-sensitive discotic liquid crystals by grafting poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) onto zirconium phosphate (ZrP) platelets using pre-irradiated polymerization. The I-N transition was investigated by adjusting the temperature for a single set of samples. We found that soft disks self-assemble into nematic liquid crystals in a wider thickness-over-diameter ratio than do hard disks.