Molecular Alignment-Induced Chemically Patchy Uniaxial Nanoparticles and Their Applications in Anti-Counterfeiting and Self-Assembled Superstructures.

We report an unusual strategy for synthesizing patchy nanoparticles (NPs) by controlling the orientation of the molecules that form the NPs. This is realized by synchronous polymerization and crystallization of liquid crystal (LC) monomers during scalable precipitation polymerization. The resulting NPs are cylinders with highly uniform shapes and have only a single LC domain. The patchy properties originate from the discrepancy of surface chemical compositions on flat and side surfaces and can be switched on and off by solvent. Extra colloidal blocks can be grown onto the patches, resulting in highly uniform triblock patchy dumbbells, which have integrated optical properties, and as demonstrated, show triple-mode optical authentication in anti-counterfeiting labels or patterns. We also demonstrate that the triblock patchy cylinders are attractive building blocks for long LC rods or porous colloidal materials through polymerization-induced self-assembly.