Smectic liquid-crystalline order in suspensions of highly polydisperse goethite nanorods - Vroege, G.J.; Thies-Weesie, D.M.E.; Petukhov, A.V.; Lemaire, B.J.; Davidson, P. (Advanced Materials, 2006)
Optical Bragg reflections and small-angle X-ray scattering (see figure) reveal that dispersions of Goethite (FeOOH) nanorods spontaneously form layered (smectic A) structures, although their 55% length polydispersity exceeds the theoretical limit by a factor of three. Here, sedimentation and size partitioning contribute to a very rich phase behavior including nematic and columnar phases. This suggests the application of the self-organizing tendencies of such mineral liquid crystals to obtain materials with very diverse nanostructures.
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