Microscale droplets of thermotropic liquid crystals (LCs) suspended in aqueous media (e.g., LC-in-water emulsions) respond sensitively to the presence of contaminating amphiphiles and thus provide promising platforms for the development of new classes of colloidal droplet-based sensors. We have developed new approaches to the encapsulation of microscale LC droplets in partially filled polymer capsules (so-called ‘caged’ LCs) that introduce several new properties and droplet behaviors and expand the potential utility of LC droplet-based sensors. These ‘caged’ LC droplets can undergo rapid and diagnostic changes in shape, rotational mobility, and optical appearance upon the addition of amphiphiles to surrounding aqueous media, including many useful changes in these features that cannot be attained using freely-suspended or surface-adsorbed LC droplets. The polymer ‘cages’ also provide means to immobilize LC droplets on surfaces, including the surfaces of living mammalian cells, without impacting optical appearance or diagnostic responses to contaminating amphiphiles. These advances have enabled the design of new LC droplet-based arrays and the deployment of these responsive materials in complex biological environments (including the insides of living mammalian cells) to report rapidly, and in real time, on the presence of analytes and toxins in extracellular environments. Recent results in each of these new areas will be discussed.

Behaviors of thermotropic liquid crystals ‘caged’ inside partially filled polymer capsules

251st National Meeting (2016)

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