Anisotropic plasmonic films are a desirable material for many optoelectronic applications. Here, we propose a method to align silver nanowires (AgNWs) with the help of uniaxial nematic alignment of cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) liquid crystals (LCs) that can preserve their LC orientation in solid film. AgNWs are doped into uniaxial nematic CNC LCs, where AgNWs are oriented parallel to the director of shear- aligned CNCs without aggregation. The AgNWs orientations are determined by polarized optical and dark field microscopic images. The alignment of AgNWs is characterized by the scalar order parameter S, and the measured S around 0.59 for aligned AgNWs presents an improved anisotropy with the assistance of uniaxial nematic CNC LCs. The electrical property of aligned AgNWs is examined by the four-probe method and exhibits the maximum ratio of anisotropic sheet resistance around 5, consistent with the simulated percolation probability performance using the Monte Carlo computation. Our results show that the uniaxial nematic CNC LCs can act as an effective template in aligning AgNWs, which is compatible with 3D printing and microfluidics, and allows for the preparation of low-cost, innovative optical materials and devices.

中文翻译：

---

将银纳米线薄膜与纤维素纳米晶体向列相配向

各向异性等离子体膜是许多光电应用的理想材料。在这里，我们提出了一种在纤维素纳米晶体 (CNC) 液晶 (LC) 的单轴向列排列的帮助下排列银纳米线 (AgNW) 的方法，该方法可以保持其在固体薄膜中的 LC 取向。AgNWs 被掺杂到单轴向列 CNC LCs 中，其中 AgNWs 平行于剪切对齐的 CNCs 的导向器定向，没有聚集。AgNWs 方向由偏振光学和暗场显微图像确定。AgNWs 的对齐由标量阶参数S和测量的S在单轴向列 CNC LC 的帮助下，对齐的 AgNW 约为 0.59，呈现出改进的各向异性。通过四探针方法检查对齐的 AgNW 的电气特性，并显示各向异性薄层电阻的最大比率约为 5，与使用蒙特卡罗计算模拟的渗透概率性能一致。我们的结果表明，单轴向列 CNC LC 可以作为对齐 AgNW 的有效模板，与 3D 打印和微流体兼容，并允许制备低成本、创新的光学材料和设备。