Recent Advances in Liquid Crystal Nanomaterials

Dear Colleagues,

Self-assembling organic materials that exhibit liquid crystalline behavior represent soft matter with unique properties. They are extremely promising anisotropic media for the design of nanocomposite systems. The main motivation for introducing nanoparticles into liquid crystalline matrices is usually to improve their optical and electro-optical or magneto-optical properties, as well as to create new materials. The dispersion of guest particles in a liquid crystalline medium has been an active area of research for four decades. There has also been a continuously growing interest in this area of research over the last 10 years, and a number of interesting phenomena have been demonstrated. Composite systems—liquid crystals (LCs) doped with different nanoparticles, such as gold, or semiconducting, ferroelectric, magnetic, or carbon nanotubes—have been subjected to intensive research in an effort to produce materials with unique properties, as well as to increase the sensitivity of these materials to external fields. Significant efforts have been made to study and explore the orientation of the particles in these systems. Several approaches have been devised for the generation of new functional materials. Promising new directions include LCs for organic electronics; semiconductor devices; energy conversion; LC templating to create nanostructured materials; synthesizing nanoparticles in liquid crystalline templates or ordering nano- and microparticles; liquid crystal colloids and their potential in photonics and metamaterials; liquid crystal-functionalized polymer fibers; LC elastomer actuators; and drug delivery applications. The interaction between the nanoparticles and self-assembling media strongly depends on the specific combination of the physical properties of both components, thus depending on the molecular structure and elastic properties of LCs, as well as on the type, size, and shape of the nanoparticles used as a dopant.

This Special Issue is a timely approach to survey the recent progress in the field of liquid crystal-based nanomaterials and their applications. As such, this Special Issue offers a unique insight into what has been achieved and what remains to be explored in liquid crystal nanomaterials.

Dr. Natália Tomašovičová
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.