Active colloids in liquid crystals. (February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lavrentovich, Oleg D.
• Is Part Of: Current opinion in colloid & interface science. Volume 21(2016)
• Page Start: 97
• Page End: 109
• Publication Date: 2016-02
• Subjects: Liquid crystals -- Active colloids -- Electrokinetics -- Bacterial dispersions -- Living liquid crystals; Surface chemistry -- Periodicals; Colloids -- Periodicals; 541.33
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cocis.2015.11.008
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1359-0294

Abstract

Abstract: Active colloids in liquid crystals (ACLCs) are an active matter with qualitatively new facets of behavior as compared to active matter that becomes isotropic when relaxed into an equilibrium state. We discuss two classes of ACLCs: (i) "externally driven ACLCs", in which the motion of colloidal particles is powered by an externally applied electric field, and (ii) "internally driven ACLCs", formed by self-propelled particles such as bacteria. The liquid crystal (LC) medium is of a thermotropic type in the first case and lyotropic (water based) in the second case. In the absence of external fields and self-propelled particles, the ACLCs are inactive, with the equilibrium LC state exhibiting long-range orientational order. The external electric field causes ACLCs of type (i) to experience translations, rotations, and orbiting, powered by mechanisms such as LC-enabled electrokinetics, Quincke rotations and entrapment at the defects of LC order. A dense system of Quincke rotators, orbiting along circularly shaped smectic defects, undergoes a transition into a collective coherent orbiting when their activity increases. An example of internally driven ACLCs of type (ii) is living liquid crystals, representing swimming bacteria placed in an otherwise passive lyotropic chromonic LC. The LC strongly affects many aspects of bacterial behavior, most notably by shaping their trajectories. As the concentration of bacteria and their activity increase, the orientational order of living liquid crystals experiences two-stage instability: first, the uniform steady equilibrium director is replaced with a periodic bend deformation, then, at higher activity, pairs of positive and negative disclinations nucleate, separate, and annihilate in dynamic patterns of topological turbulence. The ACLCs are contrasted to their isotropic counterparts. Graphical abstract: Highlights: Liquid crystals enable electrokinetics with the velocity proportional to the field squared. Director distortions generate space charge in the presence of an electric field. Brownian motion in a liquid crystal is both anisotropic and anomalous. Bacterial trajectories in liquid crystals are controlled by the director. Living liquid crystals feature periodic band instability and topological turbulence.