Cholesteric Soft Matter Molded Helical Photonic Architecture toward Volatility Monitoring of Organic Solvent

Volatility monitoring of a tiny amount of organic solvent, which reflects the profound understanding of the micro-environmental chemical physics effect, plays a significant role in chemical reactions. Common approaches, such as microfluidic technology, undeniably encounter the issue of complicated fabrication or high cost, impeding their large-scale application for monitoring the processes of chemical physics in micro-reactions. Herein, a helical polymer film (HPF) molded by a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) is reported to record the helical arrangement. By infiltrating less than 1.0 μL volatile solvent into the HPF and monitoring the corresponding reflection spectral behaviors, an intrinsic dynamic chemical physics process, solvent properties, and molecular interactions between the solvent and the polymer network are quantitatively evaluated. Furthermore, to further explore the underlying interaction mechanism that results in spectral band shift, a dynamical model is established and elucidated, providing remarkable information and understanding of the dynamic chemical physics processes and interfacial molecular interactions between the solvent and the polymer. This work has tied a close bond among chemical engineering, photonics, and soft condensed physics, which can provide an avenue for the new field of application of LC photonics beyond display and optics.