Fabrication of anisotropic hydrogels exhibiting direction-dependent structure and properties has attracted great interest in biomimicking, tissue engineering, and bioseparation.
Agglomeration or dewetting is technologically important in the microelectronics industry as it is one of the methods of producing arrays of nanosized metal clusters.
One of the current challenges in liquid crystal science is to understand the molecular factors leading to the formation of the intriguing twist-bend nematic phase (NTB) and determine its properties.