Soft crystal martensites: An in situ resonant soft x-ray scattering study of a liquid crystal martensitic transformation
Hyeong Min Jin, Xiao Li, James A. Dolan, R. Joseph Kline, José A. Martínez‐González, Jiaxing Ren, Chun Zhou, Juan Pablo, Paul F. Nealey
Abstract
Liquid crystal blue phases (BPs) are three-dimensional soft crystals with unit cell sizes orders of magnitude larger than those of classic, atomic crystals. The directed self-assembly of BPs on chemically patterned surfaces uniquely enables detailed in situ resonant soft x-ray scattering measurements of martensitic phase transformations in these systems. The formation of twin lamellae is explicitly identified during the BPII-to-BPI transformation, further corroborating the martensitic nature of this transformation and broadening the analogy between soft and atomic crystal diffusionless phase transformations to include their strain-release mechanisms.