Light-Programmed Persistent and Rewritable Anisotropy in Photoresponsive Mesogenic Microdroplets
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Photo-responsive liquid-crystalline systems can translate molecular photoisomerization into mesoscale reorganization, but retaining light-written anisotropy in fluid mesophases remains challenging because the programmed order readily relaxes. Here, we show that photo-responsive RM-AzoSi3 microdroplets enable polarized-light writing, rewriting, and quantitative readout of mesophase anisotropy at single-droplet resolution. Microdroplet arrays prepared by µ-contact printing on PDMS exhibit a hyperbolic hedgehog internal organization that can be reoriented by polarized irradiation into directional anisotropic states perpendicular to the incident polarization. Polarized imaging enables the monitoring of internal organization and shows that repeated irradiation progressively suppresses relaxation, yielding long-lived anisotropy while preserving rewritability. Under inert atmosphere, photopolymerization further tunes the balance between structural fixation and preservation of mesoscopic order, with strong sensitivity to irradiation power, exposure time, and pulse frequency. Together, these results establish light-programmed persistent anisotropy as an accessible design principle in fluid soft matter and position photo-responsive microdroplets as a versatile platform for directional optical programming in soft-photonic materials.
Source: ChemRxiv
Institution: Eindhoven University of Technology
Language: English
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221638255