RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science Physicochemical Soft Matter Research Team
Team Leader: Fumito Araoka (Ph.D.)
Research Summary
“Physicochemical Soft-Matter Research Unit” is mainly working on functionality of soft-matter systems from the viewpoints of physical experiments and analyses. In our research unit, particular attention is paid to liquid crystals due to their self-organizability leading to multifarious structures in which many interesting physical phenomena emerge. Our interest also covers potential applications of such soft-matter systems towards optical/electronic or chemical devices. For example, 1. Ferroelectric interactions and switching mechanisms in novel liquid crystalline ferroelectric materials, 2. Chirality related phenomena - origin and control of emergence, as well as applications of superstructure chirality in self-organized soft-matter systems, 3. Novel optical/electronic devices based on self-organized soft-matter systems.
Main Research Fields
- Mathematical & Physical Sciences
Related Research Fields
- Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering
Keywords
- Soft Matter Science
- Polymers, Liquid Crystals, Colloids
- Material Functions
- Optical Properties
- Electronic Properties
Selected Publications
- 1.Nadasi, H., Stannarius, R., Eremin, A., Ito, A., Ishikawa, K., Haba, O., Yonetake, K., Takezoe, H., Araoka, F.:
"Photomanipulation of the anchoring strength using a spontaneously adsorbed layer of azo dendrimers"
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 19, 7597 (2017). - 2.Araoka, F., Isoda, M., Miyajima, D., Seo, I., Oh-e, M., Aida, T., Takezoe, H.:
"Polar Dynamics at a Functional Group Level: Infrared-Visible Sum-Frequency Generation Study on Polar Columnar Liquid Crystals"
Adv. Erectron. Mater. 3, 1600503 (2017). - 3.Aya, S., Sasaki, Y., Takezoe, H., Ishikawa, K., Ema, K., Hikima, T., Takata, M., Araoka, F.:
"Thermodynamically Anchoring-Frustrated Surface to Trigger Bulk Discontinuous Orientational Transition"
Langmuir 32, 10545 (2017). - 4.Jo, J. Y., Jeon, S. W., Kim, B. C., Bae, J. H., Araoka, F., Choi, S. W.:
"Polymer Stabilization of Liquid-Crystal Blue Phase II toward Photonic Crystals"
ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 9, 8941 (2017). - 5.Aya, S., Araoka, F.:
"Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets"
J. Vis. Exp. 123, e55729 (2017). - 6.Sasaki, Y., Jampani, V. S. R., Tanaka, C., Sakurai, N., Sekine, S., Le, K. V., Araoka, F.*, Orihara, H.* (*Equal Correspondence):
"Large-scale self-organization of reconfigurable topological defect networks in nematic liquid crystals"
Nat. Comm. 7, 13238 (2016). - 7.Le, K. V., Hafuri, M., Ocak, H., Bilgin-Eran, B., Tschierske, C., Sasaki, T., Araoka, F.:
"Electro-Optic Kerr Response in a Self-Stabilized Amorphous Blue Phase with Nanoscale Smectic Clusters"
ChemPhysChem 17, 1425 (2016). - 8.Humar, M., Araoka, F., Takezoe, H., Musevic, I.:
"Lasing properties of polymerized chiral nematic Bragg onion microlasers"
Opt. Express 24, 19237 (2016). - 9.Arazoe, H., Miyajima, D., Akaike, K., Araoka, F., Sato, E., Hikima, T., Kawamoto, M., Aida, T.:
"An autonomous actuator driven by fluctuations in ambient humidity"
Nat. Mater. 15, 1084 (2016). - 10.Roche, C., Sun, H. J., Leowanawat, P., Araoka, F., Partridge, B. E., Peterca, M., Wilson, D. A., Prendergast, M. E., Heiney, P. A., Graf, R., Spiess, H. W., Zeng, X. B., Ungar, G., Percec, V.:
"A supramolecular helix that disregards chirality"
Nat. Chem. 8, 80 (2016).
Recent Research Results
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Fumito Araoka
- Team Leader
Core members
- Hiroya Nishikawa
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Taishi Noma
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Daichi Okada
- Postdoctoral Researcher
Contact Information
2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama
351-0198, Japan
Email: fumito.araoka [at] riken.jp