Controlling the volatility of the written optical state in electrochromic DNA liquid crystals.

Liquid crystals are widely used in displays for portable electronic information display. To broaden their scope for other applications like smart windows and tags, new material properties such as polarizer-free operation and tunable memory of a written state become important. Here, we describe an anhydrous nanoDNA-surfactant thermotropic liquid crystal system, which exhibits distinctive electrically controlled optical absorption, and temperature-dependent memory.

Self-assembly of ferromagnetic organic-inorganic perovskite-like films.

Perovskite-based organic-inorganic hybrids hold great potential as active layers in electronics or optoelectronics or as components of biosensors. However, many of these applications require thin films grown with good control over structure and thickness--a major challenge that needs to be addressed. The work presented here is an effort towards this goal and concerns the layer-by-layer deposition at ambient conditions of ferromagnetic organic-inorganic hybrids consisting of alternating CuCl4-octahedra and organic layers.