Controlled Multistep Self-Assembling of Colloidal Droplets at a Nematic Liquid Crystal-Air Interface.

ABSTRACT

We present a controlled cascade of self-assemblings of colloidal droplets at a nematic liquid crystal-air interface into large-scale ordered structures. Changing the tilt of the droplet-induced elastic dipoles via its dependence on the nematic film thickness, we are able to control the dipole-dipole interaction and thus the self-assembling regime. For a progressively large tilt, droplets form anisotropic lattices, which then transform into arrays of repulsive chains, then to bands of half-period-shifted densely bound chains. These structures with chain order at the inner scale aggregate into different large-scale clusters that have a pronounced circular pattern and are stabilized by the many-body elastocapillary attraction.