本研究乃利用微流道生成系統製作出尺寸均勻的藍相液晶微球群，並研究藍相液晶微球在降溫過程中，受到具有垂直(異向)配向效果之SDS水溶液的影響而造成的溫寬與光學特性上之變化。論文主要研究內容可分兩個主題，第一個是在慢速降溫過程中，利用偏光顯微鏡觀察液晶微球群出現藍相與消失時的溫度範圍，改變不同濃度的SDS水溶液會讓液晶微球出現藍相的溫度範圍跟著位移，在偏光顯微鏡的反射模式與穿透模式所觀察到的藍相也會因為配向力的強弱而出現不同步的相態變化。由於液晶微球受到來自四面八方的三維徑向錨定力所影響，不同於一般平板樣品所受較少維度方向之錨定力，因此藍相液晶微球展現出不同於一般藍相樣品的特性。
第二個主題為了將第一部分的實驗結果進行客觀的數據化，自行架設一套可進行單顆液晶微球光譜量測與白光影像擷取之光路。實驗結果顯示隨著水溶液給予的邊界錨定力愈強，藍相液晶的光子能隙在降溫時的位移範圍也會愈狹窄，代表其晶格結構可更穩定地被維持住，不會因為些微的溫度改變而在物理光學性質上出現大幅度的改變。由上述結果可知錨定力的強弱對於藍相液晶的穩定性有很大的影響，相信這項有趣的研究對於將來的藍相液晶特性探討及顯示器領域會有重要的幫助。

This study successfully fabricated blue phase liquid crystal (BPLC) microdroplets with uniform size by a microfluidic system. The influences of SDS aqueous solution with homeotropically anchoring force on the BP temperature range and characteristics of the BPLC microdroplets are investigated. This study included two topics. The first part, during the cooling process, we found that the BPLC microdroplets near the surface and bulk regions have different transition temperatures and thus different BP temperature ranges. The photonic bandgap (PBG) shift of the BPLC microdroplets became narrower when the concentration of the aqueous solution. This result is attributed to the more stabilized effect on the lattice structures of the BPLC microdroplets under a stronger anchoring force caused by the higher concentrated SDS solution.
In second part, we measured the spectra of single LC microdroplet and recorded the corresponding white light images at the cooling process. The results showed that the BPLC PBG shifted a narrower spectral range during the cooling process because a stronger anchoring force from a high concentrated SDS solution can more effectively stabilize the lattice structure of the BP, which result is similar to that in Part 1. The investigation about the interesting properties of the BPLC microdroplets is important in understanding the basic properties of BPLC and helpful to the future applications.

[1] H. Kikuchi, M. Yokota, Y. Hisakado, H. Yang, and T. Kajiyama, “Polymer-stabilized liquid crystal blue phases,” Nat. Mater. 1(1), 64–68 (2002).
[2] P. Etchegoin, “Blue phases of cholesteric liquid crystals as thermotropic photonic crystals,” Phy. Rev. Lett. 62(1), 1435–1437 (2000).
[3] M. J. Lee, C. H. Chang, and W. Lee, “Label-free protein sensing by employing blue
phase liquid crystal,” Biomed. Opt. Express 8(3), 1712–1720 (2017).
[4] S. M. Shamid, D. W. Allender, and J. V. Selinger, “Predicting a Polar Analog of Chiral Blue Phases in Liquid Crystals,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 113(237801), 1–5 (2014).
[5] J. A. Martínez-González, Y. Zhou, M. Rahimi, E. Bukusoglu, N. L. Abbott, and J. J. de Pablo, “Blue-phase liquid crystal droplets,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 112(43), 13195–13200 (2015).
[6] E. Bukusoglu, X. Wang, J. A. Martinez-Gonzalez, J. J. de Pablo, and N. L. Abbott, “Stimuli-Responsive Cubosomes Formed from Blue Phase Liquid Crystals,” Adv. Mater. 27, 6892–6898 (2015).
[7] H. G. Lee, S. Munir, and S. Y. Park, “Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Droplets for Biosensors,” ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 8, 26407−26417 (2016).
[8] J. H. Jang, S. Y. Park, “pH-responsive cholesteric liquid crystal double emulsion dropletsprepared by microfluidics” Sens. Actuators, B-Chem. 241, 636–643 (2017).
[9] C. Priest, A. Quinn, A. Postma, A. N. Zelikin, J. Ralston and F. Caruso, “Microfluidic polymer multilayer adsorption on liquid crystal droplets for microcapsule synthesis,” Lab on a Chip 8, 2182–2187 (2008).
[10] M. G. Donato, J. Hernandez, A. Mazzulla, C. Provenzano, R. Saija, R. Sayed, S. Vasi,
A. Magazzu`, P. Pagliusi, R. Bartolino, P. G. Gucciardi, O. M. Marago`, and G. Cipparrone, “Polarization-dependent optomechanics mediated by chiral microresonators,” Nat. Comm. 5(3656), 1–5 (2014).
[11] Y. Li, J. J. Y. Suen, E. Prince, E. M. Larin, A. Klinkova, H. T. Aubin, S. Zhu, B. Yang, A. S. Helmy, O. D. Lavrentovich, and, E. Kumacheva, “Colloidal cholesteric liquid crystal in spherical confinement,” Nat. Comm. 7(12520), 1–11 (2016).
[12] H. Y. Liu, C. T. Wang, C. Y. Hsu, and T. H. Lin, “Pinning effect on the photonic bandgaps of blue-phase liquid crystal,” Appl. Opt. 50(11), (2011).
[13] P. G. de Gennes and J. Prost, The Physics of Liquid Crystals (Oxford University Press, New York 1993).
[14] S. Chandrasekhar, Liquid Crystal (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992).
[15] I. C. Khoo, Liquid Crystals: Physical Properties and Nonlinear Optical Phenomena (John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995).
[16] 松本正一 和 角田市良 合著，劉瑞祥 譯，液晶之基礎與應用 (國立編譯館，台灣，1996)。
[17] Eds. H. S. Kitzerow and Ch. Bahr, Chirality in Liquid Crystals (Springer, New York, 2001).
[18] H. Zhou, E. P. Choate, and H. Wang, Optical Fredericks Transition in a Nematic Liquid Crystal Layer (Springer, New York, 2015).
[19] Hirotsugu Kikuchi, “Liquid Crystalline Blue Phases,” Struct. Bond. 128, 99–117 (2008).
[20] S. Meiboom, J. P. Sethna, P. W. Anderson, and W. F. Brinkman, “Theory of the blue phase of cholesteric liquid crystals,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 46(18), 1216¬–1219 (1981).
[21] P. E. Cladis, P. Pieranski, and M. Joanicot, “Elasticity of blue phase-I of cholesteric liquid crystals,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 52(7), 542–545 (1984).
[22] A. Yoshizawa, “Liquid Crystal Oligomers Exhibiting a Blue Phase,” Mol. Cryst. Liq. Cryst. 516, 99–106 (2010).
[23] B. Jerome and P. Pieranski, “Kossel diagrams of blue phases,” Liq. Cryst. 5(3), 799–812 (1989).
[24] Y. Hisakado, H. Kikuchi, T. Nagamura, and T. Kajiyama, “Large electro-optic Kerr effect in polymer-stabilized liquid crystalline blue phases,” Adv. Mater. 17(1), 96–98 (2005).
[25] H. Yoshida, S. Yabu, H. Tone, Y. Kawata, H. Kikuchi, and M. Ozaki, “Secondary electro-optic effect in liquid crystalline cholesteric blue phases,” Opt. Mater. Express 4(5), 960–968 (2014).
[26] M. J. Gim, G. Han, S. W. Choi, and D. K. Yoon, “Thermal phase transition behaviours of the blue phase of bent-core nematogen and chiral dopant mixtures under different boundary conditions,” Soft Mater. 10, 8224–8228 (2014).
[27] 方金祥 著，微型化學實驗之設計與製作 (高雄覆文圖書出版社，台灣，1998 年)。
[28] 余岳川 著，生活與化學 (台灣書店出版社，台灣，1997年)。
[29] P. Kekicheff, C. Grabielle-Madelmont, and M. Ollivon, “Phase Diagram of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate-Water System” J. Colloid Interface Sci. 131(1), 112-132 (1989).