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Despite being associated with neurodegenerative diseases, amyloid fibrils can also serve as building blocks for functional materials thanks to their chemical stability and mechanical rigidity. In aqueous dispersions of these proteinaceous filaments, tactoids, i.e. droplets of liquid crystalline phase, may emerge spontaneously from initial isotropic solutions. We fabricated hybrid tactoids where gold nanorods follow the liquid crystal alignment of amyloid fibrils. Plasmonic enhancement of the fibrils' intrinsic luminescence within these tactoids may contribute to treating related neurodegenerative diseases. See details in Adv. Mater. 33, 2106155 (2021).

Elastic multipoles describe interactions between colloidal particles suspended in liquid crystals. Despite the discovery of elastic dipoles, quadrupoles and other higher order multipoles, the zeroth order--elastic monopoles--remained elusive for decades. Here we used polarized light to generate and switch the signs of monopoles, almost like switching the signs of electric charges. See Nature 570, 214 (2019).

Light, especially from the sun, powers human activities by providing energies in various forms. Self-assembled monolayers of azobenzene molecules can also convert light into mechanical rotation of thin microplatelets suspended in a liquid crystal. Because of their high efficiency, those tiny motors may be started even by the sunlight on a good day. See here Nat. Commun. 9, 5040 (2018).

Colloidal interactions in common solvents such as water may be determined by electrostatic forces or entropic depletion. In liquid crystals, however, particle shapes also matter because of how they perturb the molecular orientation field. The perturbation can propagates far beyond the physical extend of the particles and mediate particle interactions. Here we demonstrate how chirality, a measurement of shape symmetry, does that. See details in Nat. Mater. 17, 71 (2018).