Patterned fiber formation

Polymers The ability of liquid crystalline materials to order spontaneously has driven many innovations, from display technologies to extremely tough polymer fibers. Cheng et al. exploited this preponderance toward long-range ordering to direct the growth of nonliquid crystalline polymers into sheets of highly ordered fibers. Small changes to the processing conditions could be used to tweak the arrangement of the liquid crystals to generate a wide range of polymer mats or sheets for potential use in sensing or filtration applications. Science , this issue p. [804][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aar8449