title: Colloidal liquid crystals in square confinement: isotropic, nematic and smectic phases.
abstract: We report on the confinement of colloidal liquid crystals in three dimensional chambers with a square footprint. To this end we use colloidal silica rods and exploit their relatively large density difference with respect to the dispersing solvent to study isotropic, nematic and smectic phases confined into a single chamber. Combining laser scanning confocal microscopy and soft-lithography techniques enables us to characterize the configurations down to the single particle level. We will focus on the smectic phase and compare to recent theories and simulations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QZ, UK.
authors.forename: Louis B G
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Cortes
authors.forename: Yongxiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Roel P A
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Dullens
authors.forename: Dirk G A L
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Aarts