Integrating 2D Nanomaterials into Liquid Crystals for Multifunctional Nanocomposite Films

Abstract

We report a facile strategy to exfoliate and disperse transition metal dichalcogenides (WS2, MoS2, VS2) and MXene (Ti3C2Tx) directly within liquid crystals (LCs), yielding stable multifunctional nanocomposites. The multifunctional composite films exhibited unique properties, highlighted by the nanomaterial-mediated cholesteric-to-isotropic transition in the LC/Ti3C2Tx composite films at lower applied fields than the LC film alone. In addition, we demonstrated the preparation of free-standing LC/Ti3C2Tx composite films having both distinct LC and nanomaterial optical characteristics. Our solvent-free approach also enabled alignment-layer-free blade coating of birefringent composite films without postsynthesis processing. Significant polarization-dependent absorption was observed for LC/MoS2 films due to the anisotropy of the composite. The facile film processing and composite film properties are appealing for the fabrication of next-generation optoelectronics.